Oklahoma City bombing conspirators Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), having stayed in a Junction City, Kansas, motel to discuss their upcoming attempt to bomb a federal building (see January 19 - January 27, 1995), go to a gun show in Topeka, Kansas, where they ply their trade of selling guns, armaments, and other materials. Nichols actually works the gun show while McVeigh stays in the motel. After the show, McVeigh drives to Kingman, Arizona, staying for a night at the Uptown Motel. He registers as “Tim Johnson” of “Fort Lewis, Washington,” but the car he registers is under his own name. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Douglas O. Linder, 2001]

Federal law enforcement officials from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), and the US Attorney’s Office in Oklahoma discuss raiding the militant white supremacist compound in Elohim City, Oklahoma, where plans to bomb an Oklahoma City federal building are possibly being hatched (see November 1994). The officials decide against any such raid. [Douglas O. Linder, 2001]

A small bomb explodes in a field near a neighborhood in Kingman, Arizona. Future Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh sometimes lives in Kingman (see December 16, 1994 and After). The explosion causes no injuries, but blows out windows in several homes. After the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), the FBI will reinvestigate the explosion, examining earth samples and bomb fragments. [New York Times, 4/23/1995] Mohave County Sheriff Joe Cook will later say the explosion “wasn’t really a big deal” and that it probably was not related to the Oklahoma City bombing. [New York Times, 4/24/1995] In May, federal authorities will arrest a man, Dennis Malzac, in connection with the bombing, and will determine that the explosion was probably carried out in retaliation for a drug deal gone bad (see May 12, 1995). The explosion apparently has no connection to the Oklahoma City bombing. [New York Times, 5/13/1995]

Montana Freeman William Stanton is convicted on charges of criminal syndicalism (see June-July 1994 and October 17, 1994). Stanton, an elderly rancher whose property suffered foreclosure in 1993, joined the Freemen after Freemen leader LeRoy Schweitzer offered him a $3.8 million loan to cover the foreclosure debt (see 1993-1994). The loan was worthless, but instead of reacting angrily to Schweitzer’s fraudulent loan offer, Stanton blamed the local and federal government for his predicament. As an increasingly active Freeman, Stanton has issued fraudulent money orders, offered a $1 million bounty for Garfield County officials (see January 1994), and threatened to hang the Garfield County sheriff from a bridge. Stanton is sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay a $100,000 fine. The FBI learns that the Freemen might be planning to retaliate against Garfield County Attorney Nick Murnion, who successfully prosecuted Stanton, Murnion’s fellow prosecutor John Bohlman, and the judge who sentenced Stanton, Roy C. Rodeghiero. The FBI informs the local sheriff that the Freemen intend to kidnap the judge, “try” him in their “court,” sentence him to death, and videotape his hanging. In response, Musselshell County puts reserve deputies in the courthouse to protect Rodeghiero and accompany him to and from work. On March 3, a Musselshell County deputy stops two Freemen, Dale Jacobi and Frank Ellena, for driving a pickup truck with no license. The deputy finds both are carrying concealed weapons without permits. A subsequent search finds a hand-drawn map of the town of Jordan, with the office and home of Murnion labeled. The truck contains a plethora of weapons and ammunition (including armor-piercing rounds), 30 sets of plastic-strip handcuffs, $60,000 in gold and silver, $26,000 in cash, duct tape, a video camera, a still camera, and radio telecommunications gear. The deputies are sure they have captured two of the intended kidnappers. That evening, three Freemen walk into the Musselshell County Jail and demand that the deputies on duty give them the items seized from the truck. Two other Freemen wait outside the jail. One deputy notices one of the Freemen concealing a handgun, and the two deputies manage to arrest him without incident. One of the arrested Freemen is John Trochmann, the founder of the Montana Militia (sometimes called the Militia of Montana, or MOM—see January 1, 1994); it is later learned that Trochmann has become something of a Freemen enthusiast. Deputy Orville Jones later says of Trochmann’s presence, “If this isn’t evidence that some type of evil intent was afoot, then I’m not a very good policemen.” Jones is sympathetic with the plight of Stanton and many of the other Freemen, but not of their tactics, saying: “My Grandpa lost his ranch during the Depression.… I go by that ranch every day, and I see the trees my Grandma planted, and I see where my dad was born. And it just tears at my heart. God, I understand them almost to the point that it scares me. But I do not tolerate crimes of violence.” The arrests bear little fruit. The sheriff’s office is bombarded with hundreds of phone calls, most threatening violence. Bohlman receives at least 40 of what he will call “straight-out death threats” against himself and his secretary. Bohlman’s secretary moves her daughter temporarily to Minnesota after one caller threatens the child. Many of the long-distance calls demand Trochmann’s immediate release and are clearly from Montana Militia members, though Montana Militia co-founder Randy Trochmann denies any connections between his group and the Freemen. A judge will throw out most of the charges against Trochmann and the six Freemen, because of irregularities in the search procedures. Ellena and Jacobi jump bail. [Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996]

Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) writes a letter that says his mind-set has shifted from “intellectual” to “animal,” and implies that he is part of a larger anti-government network that shares his extremist views. The letter is written to Gwenn Strider of Caro, Michigan, the aunt of McVeigh’s friend Kevin Nicholas (see December 18, 1994), a factory worker from Vassar, Michigan. McVeigh has dropped Strider occasional letters over the last two years, mostly chatty notes. This letter is quite different. He tells her he is currently living in the desert (see January 31 - February 12, 1995) and says that his days of distributing anti-government pamphlets is over: “I was preaching and ‘passing out,’ before anyone had ever heard the words ‘patriot’ and ‘militia.’ ‘Onward and upward,’ I passed on that legacy about a half year ago. I believe the ‘new blood’ needs to start somewhere; and I have certain other ‘militant’ talents that are short in supply and greatly demanded. So I gave my informational paperwork to the ‘new guys,’ and no longer have any to give. What I can send you is my own personal copies, ones that are just gathering dust, and a newsletter I recently received.” He says he can forward her name to some of his friends if she is interested in their beliefs and activities, but warns her that such contacts might be dangerous, as the government is closely monitoring them and their organizations. “Hey, that’s just the truth, and if we’re scared away from writing the truth because we’re afraid of winding up on a list, then we’ve lost already.” He compares himself to the colonial revolutionaries of the Revolutionary War, saying that like them, he intends to free America from the tyranny of its government. Later in the letter, he writes, “Most of the people sent my way these days are of the direct-action type, and my whole mindset has shifted, from intellectual to—animal. (Rip the b_stards heads off [sic] and sh_t down their necks! and I’ll show you how with a simple pocket knife… etc.)” McVeigh signs the letter, “Seeya, The Desert Rat.” Strider’s nephew Nicholas met McVeigh in 1992, when he worked as a farmhand for James Nichols, the brother of McVeigh’s fellow bombing conspirator, Terry Nichols (see October 12, 1993 - January 1994, November 5, 1994, and November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995). According to Nicholas, who will testify against McVeigh, McVeigh stayed with him as an occasional houseguest in Vassar (see December 18, 1994), and the two went together to some area gun shows (see January 1 - January 8, 1995). [New York Times, 5/9/1997]

Helen Chenoweth in a 1995 photo. [Source: Joe Marquette / Associated Press]Representative Helen Chenoweth (R-ID), in her first two months as a member of the US House of Representatives, accuses the federal government of sending “black helicopters” filled with “armed agency officials” to terrorize Idaho citizens. Chenoweth, who has extensive contacts among area militias and will be characterized as the militia’s “best friend” in Congress (see May 2, 1995), is repeating a canard often used by far-right extremists who believe the UN and the federal government will use “black helicopters” filled with foreign troops to impose tyranny on US citizens. In a press release, Chenoweth says the federal government is violating the Idaho Constitution by using “armed agency officials and helicopters” to enforce the Endangered Species Act and other fish and wildlife regulations. The language of the press release implies that if a federal agent is armed and in Idaho, it is a violation of the Idaho Constitution. Chenoweth orders the government to immediately cease its alleged actions, and in the release, threatens Assistant Agriculture Secretary Jim Lyons by saying, “If it does not, I guarantee you I will be your worst nightmare for at least the next two years.” Chenoweth later tells a reporter, who asks about the black helicopters: “I have never seen them. But enough people in my district have become concerned that I can’t just ignore it. We do have some proof.” Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service, says, “All I can say is, we have never had helicopters, have not flown them as part of any endangered-species activity, and we’ve always worked hand in glove with local officials.” [New York Times, 5/2/1995; Sierra Magazine, 5/1996]

Don Black, working on the Stormfront.org Web site. [Source: New Times / David Abel]Don Black, the owner of the overtly racist, “white nationalist” Web site Stormfront.org (see March 1995), gives an interview to a reporter from the progressive New Times. Black later posts the interview on his site, with a mocking introduction that calls the report full of “nasty invective” and “arguably the most malicious article I’ve ever had written about me since they started coming 30 years ago.” Black tells the reporter: “We see the breakup [of the United States] coming in about 20 years—it’s a natural progression of events. The Internet is a means of planting seeds for the future. There are a lot of middle-class people who feel disaffected—and in Stormfront they can find what they can’t in the mass media. It’s about building a community and attracting hard-core supporters. We don’t use the ‘n_gger, n_gger’ type of approaches. We don’t want to present the Jerry Springer or Geraldo Rivera image of rabid racists [referring to two confrontational talk show hosts whose guests routinely scream invective at one another]. There are a lot of people who want to agree with us. They just don’t want to be associated with that.” Black explains why he and his fellow white supremacists do not support the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, saying: “I’m not into Martin Luther King’s birthday, of course. It’s an example of a government that no longer represents the interest of the majority of its people. One that no longer represents the heritage of this country. But the minority liberal, multcultural orthodoxy in this country has determined him to be a national hero. And while most Americans opposed the holiday—white Americans, of course—they now have to accept it, like they have accepted everything imposed on them.” Of his West Palm Beach, Florida, neighborhood, Black says he is uncomfortable with the number of Latinos that live there: “It bothers me this area is more Guatemalan than American. It bothers me to wait in line at Publix [a local grocery store] for a Guatemalan to get out his food stamps. I don’t want to pay taxes for them. It’s too much like New York—it’s the front lines of the third world invasion.” He tells the reporter that he doesn’t hate people of other races, he just thinks they should not live in the US. Black works primarily as a Web designer, making commercial sites for local businesses and a few political clients around the country, and doing pro bono work for a number of other white supremacist organizations such as Aryan Nations, The Truth at Last Newspaper, the Church of the Creator’s Web site (COTC—see July-December 1995), a Ku Klux Klan history site, and an Aryan Dating Page. His wife also works to support the family. The majority of Black’s worktime goes into maintaining Stormfront. The latest addition to the site, a discussion forum, requires constant monitoring, he says, both to purge harshly critical comments from critics and to delete posts that advocate violence, give bomb-making instructions, and the like. He also spends a great deal of time defending the site from “cyber attacks,” saying that outside sources relentlessly bombard the servers with denial-of-service (DOS) attacks, “ping floods,” “email bombs,” and other attempts to crash the Stormfront servers and drive the site offline. He plans on adding a live call-in streaming-audio broadcast soon. The site features links to sites that deny the Holocaust, propound “scientifically” based racism, display graphic images of Nazi and SS emblems and paraphernelia, and a plethora of racist and anti-Semitic essays and documents. Michael Winograd of the Anti-Defamation League says of Black: “He is showing the way for Klansmen, neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, and other haters who now utilize the World Wide Web to spread their propaganda and seek to attract new members. [Black] is a troubling character precisely because he is relatively articulate and intelligent and is not the knuckle-scraping neanderthal one might expect.” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, says: “The lunatic fringe has embraced this technology with a sophistication and a veracity that is frightening.… What started as a trickle has now evolved into an incredible deluge. In the last year alone, we’ve seen a 300 percent increase in the number of these pages put up on the World Wide Web.… We should be concerned about tomorrow’s Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) emerging and saying, ‘Well this turns me on,’ or ‘I’m really angry about this too.’” Black’s site is at the forefront of this movement. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke says of Black: “Don is more than a very good friend, he is one of the leading individuals in the white-rights movement. He’s matured over time—like we all do with age—into a very calm and stoic individual. He has always been a dedicated individual that’s self-sacrificing.” [New Times, 2/19/1998]

Terry Nichols, who with his friend Timothy McVeigh is finalizing plans to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), considers backing out of the bombing plan entirely. He makes it clear to McVeigh that he does not want to be involved on the day of the bombing. Nichols obtains fake identification to help in avoiding the authorities after the bombing. He and McVeigh decide to detonate the bomb on April 19, the second anniversary of the Branch Davidian debacle in Texas (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After). [Douglas O. Linder, 2001] Two inmates, David Hammer and Jeffrey Paul, who spend time on death row with McVeigh after his conviction (see June 2, 1997), will write in a 2004 book Secrets Worth Dying For that McVeigh solicits and receives assistance from residents of the white supremacist community Elohim City (see November 1994, (April 1) - April 18, 1995, and April 5, 1995). McVeigh, the two will write, wants to be considered the mastermind of the plot, and his future statements will downplay the role of Nichols and others in the bombing. After his arrest, McVeigh will take a polygraph test that shows he is truthful in discussing his own role in the bombing, but “evasive” about the roles others may play. Hammer and Paul will contend that four Elohim City residents with ties to the Aryan Republican Army (see 1992 - 1995, October 12, 1993 - January 1994, and November 1994) meet several times with McVeigh in March and April 1995 in the Arizona desert, where, the authors will claim, “they conducted ‘dry runs’ of the ‘planting the bomb and getting away.’” Hammer and Paul will also write that McVeigh informs them he consults with a man named “Poindexter,” an apparent bomb expert who advises McVeigh on bomb assembly. [Douglas O. Linder, 2006]

Stephen “Don” Black. [Source: Page2Live (.com)]Don Black, an Alabama white supremacist who lives in West Palm Beach, Florida, founds an organization called Stormfront. Stormfront’s Web site, Stormfront.org, will become the most prominent white supremacist site on the Internet, and will come to serve as the hub of a network of related Web sites. [Swain and Nieli, 1995, pp. 153-157; Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001; Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2005] The site states its purpose: “Stormfront is a resource for those courageous men and women fighting to preserve their White Western culture, ideals, and freedom of speech and association—a forum for planning strategies and forming political and social groups to ensure victory.” [New Times, 2/19/1998] The Stormfront motto is “White Pride World Wide.” Bob DeMarais, a former staff member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance (see 1970-1974), later writes, “Without a doubt, Stormfront is the most powerful active influence in the White Nationalist movement.” By 2005, the site will boast some 52,000 members and Jamie Kelso, who will begin working with Black in 2002, will claim 500 new members join every week. DeMarais will give Kelso a great deal of credit for building the Stormfront community of users. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2005] The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) will call Stormfront.org the first “hate site” on the Internet. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001]Began Extolling White Supremacist Ideology in High School, Went on to Lead KKK - Black began his career as a white supremacist while still in high school in the early 1970s, joining the National Socialist White People’s Party and handing out racist tabloids to his fellow students. In 1971, he was shot by Jerry Ray, the manager for white supremacist J.B. Stoner’s unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in Georgia. Ray, the brother of Martin Luther King Jr.‘s assassin James Earl Ray, thought that Black had broken into Stoner’s office to steal a mailing list for the National Socialist White People’s Party. Black recovered, and attended the University of Alabama, where he was ejected from the ROTC program for his racist statements. Subsequently he began working with Klan leader David Duke to revitalize the foundering Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). According to a 1995 report by the progressive New Times: “Duke taught Black it’s easier to attract supporters by criticizing affirmative action, illegitimate welfare births, and illegal immigration than labeling blacks as inferior or Jews as rich enemies. The goal was to avoid inflammatory remarks and present oneself as dignified—sticking to the issues. Supremacy is presented as nationalism. And intolerance warps into a preference for one’s own heritage.” After Duke was forced out of the KKK over allegations of selling its mailing list, Black took over the organization until 1981, when he spent three years in prison for fomenting a plot with other supremacists to invade the tiny Caribbean island nation of Dominica (see June 21, 1981). Black learned to program computers during his prison term. He returned to Birmingham, Alabama, in 1985, telling friends, “I’m here to build the greatest white racist regime this country has ever seen.” After quitting the Klan because of its overt advocacy of violence, he decided to execute his plans via the Internet, still in its infancy at the time. [Swain and Nieli, 1995, pp. 153-157; New Times, 2/19/1998; BBC, 1/12/2000; Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2005] Black’s efforts will be quite successful; in 1995, he will tell a reporter: “A third of households have computers and with the phenomenal growth of the Internet, tens of millions of people have access to our message if they wish. The access is anonymous and there is unlimited ability to communicate with others of a like mind.” [New York Times, 3/13/1995]Launches Internet BBS that Becomes Stormfront - In 1991, having married Duke’s ex-wife Chloe and moved to Florida, Black launched an Internet bulletin board (BBS) to support Duke’s unsuccessful candidacy for a US Senate seat from Louisiana. In early posts on Stormfront, Black explains that white Americans have as much right to espouse their culture as any other group, and says that Stormfront attempts to provide an alternative to the mainstream American media, which he says is dominated by Jews and liberals who routinely disparage and mock whites. Black says that his racist views are in line with those held by Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers. He calls the site the Internet presence for the “white nationalist” movement, which proclaims its intention to “separate” from minorities and found an all-white nation or state within American borders. He will tell a reporter: “We believe that our people, white people in this country and throughout the world, are being discriminated against. They’re being treated as second-class citizens. We’re tired of seeing other racial and ethnic groups impose their agenda on us.” [Swain and Nieli, 1995, pp. 153-157; New Times, 2/19/1998; BBC, 1/12/2000]Expansion - Between 1995 and 1997, Stormfront features the violent, racist writings of the National Alliance’s William Pierce (see 1978), his former mentor David Duke, the National Alliance’s Institute for Historical Review (a Holocaust-denying think tank), and others. The site promotes an array of conspiracy theories surrounding the 1992 Ruby Ridge shootings (see August 31, 1992), the 1993 Branch Davidian debacle (see April 19, 1993), and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). On Stormfront’s Web site, right-wing lawyer Kirk Lyons compares the Branch Davidian events to the Nazi destruction of the Czechoslovakian town of Lidice. Anti-Semitic writer Eustace Mullins suggests that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization dedicated to tracking and challenging racist organizations, was behind the Oklahoma City bombing. The site houses a library of neo-Nazi graphics available for download, a list of phone numbers for racist computer bulletin boards not on the Internet, and a page of links to other hate sites. By 1997, Stormfront begins hosting pages of other extremist groups such as Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s), and individuals such as Ed Fields, who publishes the racist newsletter The Truth at Last. Black reprints white supremacist articles and essays, including one that attacks the Talmud, a Jewish holy book, as filled with “malice,” “hate-mongering,” and “barbarities.” Black also reprints an essay by neo-Nazi Louis Beam (see February 1992), who claims he has knowledge of a Jewish conspiracy to censor the Internet. Black also adds new features to his site: pages “proving” the “inferiority” of the “Negro” race, a translation of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, a page of “quotes” by Jews that are either false or deliberately mistranslated along with quotes by anti-Semites, and “White Singles,” a dating service for “heterosexual, white gentiles only.” Black also adds a news section, White Nationalist News Agency (NNA), which posts the text of articles from the Associated Press and other reputable news sources, apparently without legal permission and often with racist commentary included. Black also hosts “Blitzcast,” an audio podcast that lets listeners hear speeches by the late George Lincoln Rockwell, the assassinated leader of the American Nazi Party; William Pierce; anti-Semitic Jew Benjamin Freedman; and Frank Weltner, who hosts another Black-operated site, Jew Watch. Yet another site Black hosts, Bamboo Delight, hides anti-Semitic materials behind the false front of a company selling “Tai Chi Chuan Chinese Exercise” materials. Looking past “Asian Health Philosophy” items such as the “Nine Treasure Exercises of Ancient China” videotape and the “Skinny Buddha Weight Loss Method” pamphlet, visitors find the downloadable computer programs “Jew Rats,” “Police Patriots,” “ZOG,” and “Talmud.” These programs are interactive in the same way that Web pages are interactive: users “click through” their contents, viewing various pages filled with text and graphics. “Jew Rats” is a multi-panel cartoon that depicts Jews as rats that kill Christians and encourage integration. Blacks are depicted as sub-human gorillas. “ZOG” contains the complete text of the “classic” anti-Semitic forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” along with dozens of other documents that claim knowledge of Jewish plans for world domination. Adrian Edward Marlow, who owns the servers Black uses for Stormfront and the other related sites, has bought over 10 domains that seem to be the URLs of prominent newspapers such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Atlanta Constitution-Journal, and the London Telegraph. By October 1998, Marlow has redirected those domains directly to Stormfront. Typing in “philadelphiainquirer.com,” for example, does not bring surfers to the Philadelphia newspaper’s Web site, but to Stormfront. (The Inquirer will subsequently secure that domain name from Marlow.) [Anti-Defamation League, 1998]Deliberate Attempts at 'Moderating' Message - Black takes care not for his site to appear overly crude or violent. Forum posters are warned to avoid using racial slurs and not to post violent threats or exhortations to illegal activities, “moderating” tactics apparently learned from Duke. Black will also be somewhat successful at presenting himself, and by extension his supremacist ideology, on television, insisting that his site is more about presenting information not filtered by the “media monopoly” than promoting racist beliefs (see January 13, 1998). Kelso later tells a reporter with evident pride: “One of the things that Don Black does very well is he doesn’t fit the stereotype of an angry man. Don is the most under-recognized giant in the whole white nationalist movement.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2005] Black will deny that the name “Stormfront” has any Nazi connotations, and in 1998 will explain the name, saying: “You need a colorful name. We wanted something militant-sounding that was also political and social. Stormfront says turbulence is coming, and afterwards there’ll be a cleansing effect.” Though his site is peppered with virulent anti-Semitic claims and articles, Black will deny that either he or his site espouses any hatred towards Jews. Black will also deny that he is a neo-Nazi or even a white supremacist, and say he is a “racialist” (see September 1983, March 15, 2002, July 15, 2002, and June 7, 2009) but not a racist. Black will call the term “racist” nothing more than a “scare word” with little real meaning. His son Derek will soon open a subsidiary site aimed at white children, “Stormfront for Kids” (see July 16, 2001). [Swain and Nieli, 1995, pp. 153-157; New Times, 2/19/1998; BBC, 1/12/2000] In 1998, the ADL will take issue with Black’s claims of not being a racist, writing, “Though Black claims to be a ‘White Nationalist,’ not a hatemonger, his idea of ‘White Pride’ involves demeaning, demonizing, and menacing Jews and non-whites, and his concept of ‘victory’ includes the creation of ethnically cleansed political enclaves. [Anti-Defamation League, 1998] In 2001, David Friedman of the Anti-Defamation League will tell a reporter: “Put aside your prejudices about who’s in the hate movement. If you’re looking for people in white sheets, you won’t find them. These are sophisticated bigots who have thought very carefully about the best ways to proselytize people to their hate.” [USA Today, 7/16/2001]

Jennifer McVeigh. [Source: Associated Press]Jennifer McVeigh, the younger sister of future Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, Mid-December 1994, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), writes a letter to the editor of the Lockport, New York, Union-Sun & Journal. The newspaper serves the McVeigh family home in Pendleton, New York. In her letter, McVeigh lambasts communism, gun control, permissive sex, and “the LA riots,” apparently referring to the April 1992 riots that erupted after a California jury refused to convict police officers who beat and kicked a black motorist, Rodney King. She also alludes to Randy Weaver, the Idaho white supremacist who was arrested after a siege in which his wife, son, and a Federal marshal were killed (see August 31, 1992 and August 21-31, 1992), and the Branch Davidian debacle (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After). “We need not change our form of government,” she writes, “we need only return to practicing the form of government originally set forth by our founding fathers. If you don’t think the Constitution is being perverted, I suggest you open your eyes and take a good look around. (Research constitutional rights violated in Weaver, Waco. Also ‘Gun Control’).” She also warns that if dire action is not taken, the US will fall under the rule of “a single authoritarian dictatorship.” She sends a copy of the letter to her brother, who returns it with a “grade” of an “A.” In the days after the bombing, Jennifer McVeigh will become part of the investigation into her brother’s actions and beliefs. [New York Times, 4/24/1995; Los Angeles Times, 4/27/1995; New York Times, 4/27/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 170-171, 209-211] Jennifer McVeigh quotes from a document called the “Communist Rules for Revolution” as “proof” of some of her arguments. She is unaware that the “Rules for Revolution” is a fraud (see February 1946 and After), and will later say if she knew the document was a forgery, she would not have used it as a source. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 213] Her brother wrote two similar letters to the Union-Sun & Journal in 1992 (see February 11, 1992).

Future Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see October 20, 1994, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) makes a fake driver’s license using forms his friend Michael Fortier (see February 17, 1995 and After) ordered from an advertisement in Soldier of Fortune magazine. He uses a typewriter belonging to the Fortiers. McVeigh chooses the name “Robert Kling,” picking the last name in honor of the alien race of Klingons in Star Trek. He selects April 19, 1972 as his fake birthday, and lists as his birthplace Redfield, South Dakota. When he asks Lori Fortier if he can use her iron to laminate the fake license, she tells him she will do it herself so as to avoid the possibility of his ruining her iron. She will later recall: “It was white. It had a blue strip across the top, and Tim had put his picture on there. And it was the false name of Robert Kling.” The federal indictment against McVeigh will incorrectly state that McVeigh “obtained” the ID instead of making it for himself. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 122, 133] The issue date of the Kling license is false—April 19, 1993, the date of the Branch Davidian tragedy (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After). [New York Times, 6/3/1997] The New York Times will later point out that McVeigh may have also chosen the last name of “Kling” because he served with Kerry Kling during his stint in the Army (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990). [New York Times, 4/23/1995]

Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) writes a letter to his sister Jennifer in Pendleton, New York, instructing her not to try to contact him after April 1, 1995. He sends her a box of memorabilia, including his high school yearbook and his military records, telling her, “They’re yours now.” He tells her that “something big is going to happen in the month of the bull,” referring to the astrological sign Taurus, which begins on April 20 (see Mid-December 1994). He tells her to burn the letter, which she does. He has sent her letters before, some written in code, and has advised her that if she wants to write him, she should disguise her penmanship so the authorities cannot identify her as their author. He tells her that she can trust his friends Michael and Lori Fortier (see February 17, 1995 and After), and says that sometime soon he may have to go underground and disappear. “In case of ‘alert,’ contact Mike Fortier,” he writes. “Let him know who you are and why you called.… If you must call him, Jenny, this is serious. No being lazy. Use a pay phone, and take a roll of quarters with you! They will, w/out a doubt, be watching you and tapping the phone—use a pay phone!… Note: Read back cover of Turner Diaries (see 1978) before you begin.” The back cover of that book, McVeigh’s favorite novel, reads in part: “What will you do when they come to take your guns? The patriots fight back with a campaign of sabotage and assassination.… Turner and his comrades suffer terribly, but their ingenuity and boldness in devising and executing new methods of guerrilla warfare lead to a victory of cataclysmic intensity and worldwide scope.” McVeigh’s letters continually warn her about being surveilled by government authorities, and not to trust anyone, even her friends. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 117-118, 123]

Two US Senators, Lauch Faircloth (R-NC) and Larry E. Craig (R-ID), ask the Justice Department to explain rumors they have heard from militia groups that federal agents are training at Fort Bliss, Texas, to assault those militia groups. In a letter, Faircloth and Craig ask about Fort Bliss and police training, writing in part, “You are doubtless aware of the concerns being raised in many quarters about what is perceived as the growing militarization of our domestic law enforcement agencies.” When the letter becomes publicly known, aides for both senators will claim that the senators are merely seeking information and concerned only about federal police agencies’ going beyond their normal training. The aides will claim that the letter does not mention the paramilitary groups, and will say neither Faircloth nor Craig support such groups. In a separate letter to Attorney General Janet Reno, Representative Steve Stockman (R-TX) makes the same accusation, saying that he has heard from militia group representatives that “New World Order” agents (see September 11, 1990) were preparing to invade them. Stockman calls these group representatives “reliable sources.” Stockman’s “reliable sources” told him that the assault was scheduled for March 25. It is unclear what Stockman believes had happened to that scheduled assault, which did not take place. Fort Bliss spokesperson Jean Offutt calls the warnings “ridiculous,” and Justice Department officials call them “nonsense.” Stockman, like Faircloth and Craig, says he has no ties to paramilitary groups, a statement that is false (see 10:50 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 23-24, 1995). [New York Times, 5/2/1995]

The National Rifle Association (NRA) issues a statement claiming that “jack-booted government thugs” have “the government’s go-ahead to… murder law-abiding citizens.” Former President George H. W. Bush quits the NRA in protest. The Southern Poverty Law Center will later say that the NRA is echoing “Patriot movement” and other anti-government rhetoric. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001]

Musselshell County Attorney John Bohlman, frustrated at his and his fellow authorities’ failures to stem the flouting of the law by various area Montana Freemen (see June-July 1994 and February - March 1995), writes a letter to President Clinton pleading for federal assistance in curbing the heavily armed Freemen (see 1993-1994). “[P]ersonally, I believe we will have a confrontation that ends in gunfire before the end of the year,” Bohlman writes. Many area residents, who have grown more and more disgusted with the Freemen’s actions, believe that the FBI is likely conducting surveillance of the group, but no direct actions are taken. Local reporters believe the federal government’s refusal to act is due to what they call “Weaver Fever,” the backlash caused by the bloody standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 (see August 31, 1992). [Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996]

Law professor Douglas O. Linder will later use a book by two death-row inmates, Secrets Worth Dying For by David Hammer and Jeffrey Paul, to claim that a number of white supremacists from the Aryan Republican Army (ARA—see 1992 - 1995, October 12, 1993 - January 1994, and November 1994) and Elohim City (see November 1994 and April 5, 1995) may help Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) construct his bomb at this time. Hammer and Paul will write their book after spending time in the Florence, Colorado, “Supermax” prison with McVeigh (see June 2, 1997). Linder himself will say that the claims lend themselves to dispute, as the trial record does no more than “hint at th[e] possibility” of someone besides McVeigh and his co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990, December 22 or 23, 1988, October 12, 1993 - January 1994, and February - July 1994) being involved in the bomb construction, and “[a]ny book written by convicted death row inmates raises credibility concerns.” However, Linder says other evidence gives the Hammer and Paul claims at least some credibility. McVeigh Receives Help in Building Bomb? - According to the authors and Linder, ARA members, possibly including a bomb expert McVeigh will later call “Poindexter” (see March 1995), join McVeigh in early April to work on the bomb. The men probably camp at Geary Lake, where on April 14 McVeigh meets with Nichols to receive some cash (see April 13, 1995). This same evening, a Junction City pizza delivery man brings a pizza to Room 25 of the Dreamland Motel, where he gives it to a man identifying himself as “Bob Kling,” an alias used by McVeigh (see Mid-March, 1995) to rent the Ryder truck used to deliver the bomb (see April 15, 1995). The delivery man later tells an FBI interviewer that “Kling” is not McVeigh. Linder, via Hammer and Paul, will say that the man who takes the pizza “was, most likely, ARA member Scott Stedeford.” Linder, drawing on Hammer and Paul’s material as well as his own research, believes that McVeigh, Nichols, and, “probably,” the never-identified “John Doe No.2” (see April 15, 1995 and and April 20, 1995) drive to Oklahoma City (see April 16-17, 1995), with McVeigh and “Doe” in McVeigh’s Mercury Marquis (see April 13, 1995) and Nichols in his pickup truck. McVeigh parks the Marquis in a parking lot near the Murrah Building, and all three ride back to the Dreamland Motel in Nichols’s truck. McVeigh leaves Elliott’s Body Shop in Junction City with a Ryder truck on April 17 (see 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. April 17, 1995), after renting it under the name “Robert Kling” and telling the employees he plans on using it for a four-day trip to Omaha. Conflicting Stories - At this point, Linder will write, the accounts of what happens become quite divergent. McVeigh leaves for his storage locker in Herington, Kansas, either alone or in the company of Elohim City resident Michael Brescia (see April 8, 1995). At the Herington storage facility, McVeigh, perhaps in the company of Brescia, meets either Nichols or “Poindexter.” (In their book, Hammer and Paul will quote McVeigh as saying Nichols is “a no-show” at the locker, and complaining, “He and Mike [Fortier] were men who liked to talk tough, but in the end their b_tches and kids ruled.”) McVeigh and his partners load bags of fuses and drums of nitromethane into the Ryder truck. In his authorized biography American Terrorist by Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, McVeigh will claim that he and Nichols also load bags of fertilizer into the truck, and he and Nichols finish constructing the bomb at Geary Park on the morning of April 18 (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995). McVeigh, according to Michel and Herbeck, drives by himself towards Oklahoma City in the Ryder truck, parking for the night near Ponca City and sleeping in the cab. Hammer and Paul will tell a different story. They will claim that the fertilizer is loaded into a “decoy” truck and then two trucks, not one, drive to Oklahoma City. In their version of events, the bomb is finished on the night of April 18 in a warehouse in Oklahoma City by McVeigh, Poindexter, and ARA member Richard Guthrie. After the bomb is completed, according to Hammer and Paul, Guthrie or another ARA member kills Poindexter by cutting his throat; the explanation to McVeigh is, “Soldier, he was only hired help, not one of us.” (Linder will admit that Hammer and Paul’s version of events is “sensational” and may not be entirely reliable.) FBI interviews will later include a couple who own a diner in Herington recalling McVeigh, Nichols, and a third, unidentified man having breakfast in their restaurant on the morning of April 18 (see 8:00 a.m. April 18, 1995). Witnesses will recall seeing a Ryder truck and a pickup truck at Geary Lake later this morning. This afternoon, a hair salon owner sees McVeigh and an unidentified companion enter their business and attempt to get haircuts (see April 18, 1995). Owners of a steakhouse in Perry, Oklahoma, will tell FBI investigators that they see McVeigh and “a stocky companion” eat dinner in their restaurant around 7 p.m. this evening. Linder will conclude, “We might never know exactly who assisted McVeigh in the 24 hours leading up to the dreadful events of April 19, but the McVeigh-and-McVeigh-alone theory, and the McVeigh-and-just-Nichols theory, both seem to stretch credulity.” [Douglas O. Linder, 2006]

Timothy McVeigh, preparing to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, March 31 - April 12, 1995, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), places a telephone call to white militia members in Elohim City, Oklahoma (see November 1994 and February 1995). [Douglas O. Linder, 2001] McVeigh has just finished a brief telephone conversation with someone at Elliott’s Body Shop in Junction City, Kansas, presumably in regards to renting a Ryder truck (see April 15, 1995). [Douglas O. Linder, 2006] According to later press reports, a law enforcement official will say that McVeigh receives no active response from the Elohim City inhabitants. Elohim City leader Robert Millar will later confirm that the compound did receive the call, in a common room where members often gather for coffee, though he does not know who spoke with McVeigh. Phone records indicate that the call comes from a number in Kingman, Arizona, where McVeigh often lives. That same Kingman telephone is recorded as having made another call to another number. Press reports will speculate that McVeigh may be calling to solicit assistance for the bombing, as his co-conspirator Terry Nichols has informed him he wants no further involvement in the plot (see March 31 - April 12, 1995) [New York Times, 8/6/1995; New York Times, 8/13/1995] , as has his friend and fellow conspirator Michael Fortier (see April 5, 1995). In 2005, The Oklahoman will report that McVeigh spoke for about two minutes with Joan Millar, Robert Millar’s daughter-in-law. Joan Millar will later testify that McVeigh asked if he could visit the compound in a few weeks. “He said that he had been at a gun show and he had met some of the young men from Elohim City and someone had given him a card with the phone number on it,” she will recall. “[H]e said, ‘I don’t remember his name, but he had a very broad foreign accent.’ I said, ‘Was it Andy?’ And he said, ‘That might have been his name.’” “Andy” is Andreas Strassmeir, Elohim City’s head of security (see 1973 and After). [The Oklahoman, 7/10/2005] Elohim City residents concocted a plot to blow up the Murrah Building years before (see 1983), though without McVeigh’s participation. It is not certain if McVeigh is familiar with the Elohim City bomb plot. McVeigh allegedly goes to a strip club in Oklahoma City three days later in the company of two Elohim City inhabitants (see April 8, 1995).

Michael Fortier, the friend of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) who has been helping McVeigh in the plotting (see February - July 1994, February 17, 1995 and After, Mid-March, 1995, and April 3-4, 1995), tells McVeigh that he will no longer help him (see (April 1) - April 18, 1995). With McVeigh’s co-conspirator Terry Nichols refusing to take an active role in the actual bombing (see March 1995 and March 31 - April 12, 1995), McVeigh wants Fortier to assist in the bombing itself. McVeigh asks Fortier if he will go to Oklahoma City with him to detonate the bomb. Fortier replies, “Never.” McVeigh then asks if Fortier will help him escape, saying, “If I can make it to Las Vegas somehow, give me a ride out into the desert.” Fortier replies, “I won’t do that either.” Fortier will later recall that McVeigh has become increasingly disgusted with him, calling him “domesticated,” and says that McVeigh calls him “names” and gives him “dirty looks.” Fortier will recall: “He said it [domesticated] like it was a curse word. As if that was something that was bad. He was urging me to leave my wife and travel with him on the road, sort of like being desperadoes or something.” Fortier tells McVeigh that he would never abandon his family. “I’m not going to help you do this.” McVeigh tells Fortier: “We can’t be friends any longer. I’m going to Colorado to find some real friends, some manly friends.” After their conversation, McVeigh calls his father and tells him he and Fortier have had a falling out, and that he can no longer contact McVeigh by dialing the Fortier’s telephone number. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 123-124]

Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, who has told his fellow conspirator Timothy McVeigh that he does not want to participate in the actual bombing (see March 1995 and March 31 - April 12, 1995), takes his wife Marife and their daughter Nicole to Michigan, his home state, to take part in a number of gun shows. Nichols’s movements will later be traced by the FBI. The Nichols stay at a Motel 6 in Joliet, Illinois, on the evening of April 5, and on April 6 they stay at the Caro Motel in Caro, Michigan. Both times, they register under their own names, and note their vehicle’s license plate as Michigan VW 1460. During this time, Nichols writes to his father and promises to see him in May or June; the postmark on the letter is from Las Vegas, Nevada. It is possible that Nichols mails the letter to his ex-wife Lana Padilla, who lives in Las Vegas, to have her remail it for him. Around this time, he purchases a fuel meter at Fort Riley, Kansas, approximately 600 miles from their location in Michigan. Nichols will later claim the fuel meter is broken, and will place an ad in a newspaper to sell it. On the evening of April 7, Nichols stays by himself at the President Inn in Grand Rapids, Michigan. On April 8, McVeigh receives a letter from Nichols, which he later claims makes no mention of the bombing plot. On April 8, Nichols stays at the Motel 6 in Walker, Michigan. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]

According to a 1998 book about the Oklahoma City bombing, One of Ours by Richard A. Serrano, bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, who has told his fellow conspirator Timothy McVeigh that he does not want to participate in the actual bombing (see March 1995 and March 31 - April 12, 1995), obtains a new Kansas driver’s license, takes out insurance on his blue pickup truck, and orders state license plates. After considering a number of new career ventures, such as organic blueberry farming, he has decided to start a business selling military-issue surplus MREs (meals ready to eat). He has labels and business cards printed up for the new venture, and purchases $3,250 worth of military surplus items he intends to sell, mostly weaponry and accessories such as laser sights, blowguns, and air rifles, all scheduled to arrive on April 20. He reserves two sales tables at an upcoming gun show in Hutchinson, Kansas. Nichols will later insist that he has had little real contact with McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), and is trying to build a new and peaceful life with his family. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 135-136] According to a chronology of events compiled by McVeigh’s lawyers, Nichols is either in Michigan for a round of gun shows or en route. This is confirmed by motel receipts and other evidence later gathered by FBI investigators. It is hard to reconcile Serrano’s claim, most likely sourced from dubious statements given to the FBI by Nichols after the bombing (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995), with the FBI evidence.

Jennifer McVeigh, the sister of future Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) who has at least some knowledge of her brother’s plans (see November 1994 and Mid-December 1994), is preparing to leave her family home in Pendleton, New York, for a vacation in Florida. She stays up late packing and separates many of the items her brother has sent to her in recent weeks. She places his military records and personal items in one box, and his letters to her, his political documents, and his Waco videotapes (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After) in a second box. She had asked him weeks before if he wanted her to destroy the literature and tapes, and he said no. She puts the box with his records and personal items in her closet, and gives the box containing the documents, letters, and tapes to a friend, Rose Woods, to keep for her. She begins driving to Florida early the next morning. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 124-125]

Lady Godiva’s, a strip club in Tulsa. [Source: Douglas O. Linder]Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), in the company of two self-avowed white supremacists, Andreas Strassmeir and Michael Brescia of the white supremacist compound Elohim City, Oklahoma (see 1973 and After and April 5, 1995), allegedly goes to a strip club, Lady Godiva’s, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. While he is at the club, he tells one of the strippers, “I am a very smart man.” She responds, “You are?” and McVeigh replies: “Yes I am. And on April 19, 1995, you’ll remember me for the rest of your life” (see March 1995). A number of eyewitnesses will later place McVeigh in the strip club this evening. [Douglas O. Linder, 2001; Nicole Nichols, 2003] Brescia is a member of the Aryan Republican Army (ARA), a group with which McVeigh has some ties (see 1992 - 1995). Security cameras apparently record McVeigh’s conversation with the stripper. [Douglas O. Linder, 2006] The source of this story is private investigator J.D. Cash, who sometime after the bombing will launch his own investigation to prove that McVeigh acted as part of a much larger conspiracy (see June 30, 1997). Cash will produce a videotape taken from a security camera to prove his allegation, but the audio quality is poor; it will be difficult to discern whether the man in the tape says “April 19, 1995” or just “April 1995.” The dancer will insist that McVeigh is the man she spoke to, but the contention does not match with documented evidence of McVeigh’s movements; McVeigh was staying at the Imperial Motel in Kingman, Arizona, on March 31 (see March 31 - April 12, 1995) and on April 7, one day before his alleged appearance at the strip club, he paid for another five days at the motel. A maid at the Imperial will later tell investigators that she saw McVeigh every day during that time period, and that his blue Pontiac never left the parking lot. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 267]

A 1977 Mercury Marquis similar to that owned by Timothy McVeigh. [Source: Classic Cars (.com)]Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) visits Oklahoma City and finds a place to leave a car after he bombs the Murrah Federal Building. He has left Kingman, Arizona, and stayed overnight at a motel in Amarillo, Texas. McVeigh arrives in Oklahoma City around noon, and does not drive by the Murrah Building, but instead finds the drop site for his getaway car. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]Buys Getaway Car - He then drives to Kansas, inspects his explosives stored in a Herington storage unit (see September 22, 1994 and (February 20, 1995)), and notes that his Pontiac is blowing smoke and stalling out, most likely from a blown head gasket. After making a quick run to a storage shed in Council Grove, Kansas, taking some of the explosive materials from that shed and combining them with the materials in the Herington unit, he buys a 1977 Mercury Marquis as a getaway vehicle from Thomas Manning, who owns a Firestone dealership in Junction City, Kansas. (McVeigh is using a similar plan to those executed by the Aryan Republican Army, or ARA, which uses “junk” cars to make their getaways after robbing banks—see 1992 - 1995. McVeigh has some affiliations to the ARA—see December 1994.) McVeigh trades in his deteriorating 1983 Pontiac station wagon (see January 1 - January 8, 1995) and $250 cash for the Mercury, telling Manning that he needs a “cheap car” to “get me to Michigan.” Manning, who recognizes McVeigh from his days as a soldier at Fort Riley (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990), has the Mercury, which he bought eight days ago for $150 and is planning to use for parts. Others at the dealership have used it for local errands, and they had worked on its transmission and other elements. McVeigh agrees to pay $300 cash, but when he tells Manning he will not have enough money to get back to Michigan, Manning knocks $50 off the price for McVeigh. McVeigh has Manning send the service form to the Nichols’s farm address in Decker, Michigan, and the bill of sale to his postal drop in Kingman, Arizona. “It doesn’t matter,” McVeigh tells Manning, “because I’m going to junk the Mercury out when I get to Michigan.” On the sale form, he lists his employer as the US Army, and claims he is still stationed at Fort Riley. Firestone mechanic Art Wells does some work on the Mercury to ensure it is road-ready, including swapping out a bald rear tire for a spare. McVeigh’s old Pontiac is later taken to a local junkyard and then confiscated by investigators. [New York Times, 4/22/1995; New York Times, 4/30/1995; New York Times, 12/3/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 127-130; Douglas O. Linder, 2001] McVeigh buys an oil filter from a WalMart in Arkansas City, Kansas, near the state line, around 6 p.m. on April 13, and on the 14th, swaps the damaged Pontiac and $250 for the Mercury. Nichols tries to return the filter to another WalMart on April 15. The receipt will later be found in Nichols’s wallet; it bears the fingerprints of both McVeigh and Nichols. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; New York Times, 11/4/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 127]Arranges Truck Rental - While Wells is prepping the Mercury, McVeigh goes to a pay phone in front of a nearby bus depot and makes two phone calls using a Spotlight telephone card (see August 1994). The first is to Nichols’s home in Herington, and lasts less than a minute. The second is to Elliott’s Body Shop in Junction City to inquire about the rental rates for a large Ryder truck capable of carrying 5,000 pounds of cargo (see April 15, 1995). He uses the alias “Bob Kling” (see Mid-March, 1995). Office clerk Vicki Beemer will later recall McVeigh asking how many pounds a 15-foot truck would hold; when she tells him around 3,400 pounds, he tells her, “I need a truck that will hold 5,000 pounds.” Beemer informs him he needs a 20-foot truck. She tells him he can reserve such a truck, but he will have to put down a deposit on April 15 or he cannot have the truck by April 17, as the shop is closed on Easter Sunday, April 16. McVeigh agrees, and walks back to the Firestone dealership, where he puts the Arizona license plate from the Pontiac onto the Mercury. He puts his belongings into the Mercury and drives away. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 130-131]Rents Room - McVeigh then rents a room at a local motel, in which he will stay until he makes his final trip to Oklahoma City to deliver the bomb (see April 13-14, 1995).

Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), having finished buying a getaway car for the upcoming bombing and arranging to rent a Ryder truck to deliver the two-ton bomb (see April 13, 1995), checks into Room 25 of the Dreamland Motel just outside of Junction City, Kansas, off of I-70, the connecting highway between Fort Riley and Junction City. He fills out a registration card under the name “Bob Kling,” then reconsiders, throws that registration card away, and fills out another card under his own name, giving his address as 3616 N. Van Dyke, Decker, Michigan, the Nichols family farm (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995). He writes the license plate number for his Mercury, but it is illegible, according to motel employees. He rents the room for four days, through April 17. Motel owner Lea McGown will later say that McVeigh talks her into reducing the room rate from $28 to $20, and will recall: “He’s a talker. He paid attention to his appearance. He was a very neat person. The feeling was he just washed his pants and put them on.” She will also remember him driving the Mercury, which she says has Arizona license plates, and remembers him later parking a Ryder truck behind the motel (see April 15, 1995), a recollection that conflicts with records indicating McVeigh does not pick up the truck until April 17 (see April 16, 1995 and 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. April 17, 1995). Lea’s son Eric McGown, who does maintenance work around the motel, will recall talking with McVeigh about the car, the Arizona plate, and the desert heat. [New York Times, 4/22/1995; New York Times, 4/30/1995; New York Times, 12/3/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 131-132; Douglas O. Linder, 2001]Recollections of Ryder Truck - Both Lea McGown and her son Eric later claim to have seen the Ryder truck at the motel before April 17. Eric McGown will be quite clear, saying he sees McVeigh with the truck twice, once when he asks him to move it to a different parking space and again when he sees McVeigh having some difficulty closing the rear door of the truck. He will also tell investigators, “Once I saw the Ryder truck, I never saw that Marquis again.” A Junction City resident, Herta King, whose son David lives in Room 24 of the motel, will also claim to have seen the Ryder truck at the motel on April 16. She will say that she comes to the motel around 12:30 p.m. to visit her son because he is depressed and to bring him an Easter basket. “I saw a yellow Ryder truck sitting right there, and I could not see my son’s car because the Ryder truck blocked the view,” she will say. When she visits her son again around 7:00 or 8:00 p.m., she will say, the Ryder truck is gone. In 1998, author Richard A. Serrano will write: “If the McGowns [and King] are right, then there was a second truck and McVeigh played some sort of role with that truck, too. And perhaps with someone other than Nichols. But if the McGowns are mistaken, if they are innocently caught up in the rush of hysteria that came with the search for the Oklahoma City bombers, then their recollections were nothing more than fodder for conspiracy theorists and defense lawyers hoping to confuse a trial jury.” [Serrano, 1998, pp. 146]Witnesses See Unidentified Man with McVeigh - Two witnesses later say they see another man who may be with McVeigh. Helicopter mechanic Shane Boyd, also staying at the motel, will tell investigators that he sees a bushy-haired man who resembles sketches of the so-called “John Doe No. 2” (see April 20, 1995) in the parking lot near McVeigh’s room. Boyd will remember the man as smiling. Junction City resident Connie Hood drives into the parking lot shortly after midnight to visit David King; she sees a man throw open the door of Room 23, next to King’s room, as if he is expecting someone. He then closes the door. Hood later describes the man as being stocky, having thick, dark, brushed-back hair, and an olive complexion. She will say he resembles the sketches of “John Doe No. 2” but is not identical. The description does not match Nichols’s appearance. The FBI will dust Room 23 for fingerprints; McGown will confirm that Room 23 is not rented this evening, though it is possible, she will say, that someone might have taken a key to have a look at the room and is coming out when Hood arrives. [New York Times, 12/3/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]

Elliott’s Body Shop in Junction City. Two Ryder trucks similar to the one rented by McVeigh are visible. [Source: Luogocomune (.net)]Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, April 13, 1995, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) rents a Ryder panel truck from Elliott’s Body Shop in Junction City, Kansas. McVeigh uses the alias “Robert [or Bob] Kling” (see Mid-March, 1995). [CNN, 5/9/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 132; Douglas O. Linder, 2001] McVeigh wants a one-way rental of a 20-foot Ryder and a hand truck. He says he intends to drop off the Ryder and the hand truck in Omaha, Nebraska. McVeigh pays in cash. He pays the entire rental fee of $280.32 instead of a mere deposit, so he will be able to get in and out of the store quickly on April 17, when he intends to pick up the truck, and is adamant that he needs the truck by 4:00 p.m. He declines insurance, telling store owner Eldon Elliott he does not need it because he is a truck driver for the Army. Elliott gives McVeigh two days free because he believes McVeigh is in the military. McVeigh will later tell his lawyers that the employee who rents the truck to him, presumably Elliott, is “a dumb guy,” though he could be referring to Elliott’s employee Tom Kessinger, who is also involved in the transaction. McVeigh drives back to the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, and returns the oil filter he bought from WalMart the day before. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; New York Times, 1/13/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 133] A chronology prepared by McVeigh’s lawyers will later state that McVeigh buys a car battery, not an oil filter. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996] The New York Times will later erroneously report that McVeigh uses the alias “William B. Kling” to rent the truck, not “Robert Kling” (see Mid-March, 1995). [New York Times, 4/23/1995] An unidentified man, later designated as “John Doe No. 2” by federal authorities (see April 20, 1995), is apparently with McVeigh. The man will later be described as being of medium build and having a tattoo on one arm. Authorities will not determine his identity, and will remain unsure if this man was actually with McVeigh or merely another customer. [New York Times, 4/26/1995; Mickolus and Simmons, 6/1997, pp. 810]

Timothy McVeigh, a white supremacist finalizing his plans to bomb the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) and staying at the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, Kansas (see April 13, 1995), orders delivery food from Hunan’s Chinese Restaurant under the alias “Bob Kling” (see Mid-March, 1995). Restaurant employee Yuhai Bai takes the order; as her English is not good, she has the customer spell his last name, K-L-I-N-G. McVeigh waits an hour, then calls again to prompt the delivery. The delivery person, Jeff Davis, brings the order of moo goo gai pan to Room 25 sometime around 5:30 p.m. He is late because of a rainstorm and because of road construction. McVeigh pays $11 for the delivery in cash. Davis will later tell investigators that he is sure the man identifying himself as “Kling” was not McVeigh, fellow conspirator Terry Nichols (see March 1995 and April 5-10, 1995), nor the person depicted in sketches and known as “John Doe No. 2” (see April 20, 1995). He will describe the man paying for the order as tall, with collar-length blonde hair. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 136, 145] A 1998 book, One of Ours, will identify the restaurant as “Hunam Palace.” [Serrano, 1998, pp. 136]

A clerk at a Junction City check-cashing business refuses to cash a check from two men later identified as “John Doe No. 1” and “John Doe No. 2,” suspects in the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 20, 1995). “No. 1” will later be identified as bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh. The clerk will recall, “They said, ‘We need the money right away because we’re going on emergency leave,’” apparently indicating that they are in military service. She refuses to cash the check because they refuse to show her identification. She will later say they left angry and mumbling curses. “They got real hyper,” she will say. “But that often happens around here.” [New York Times, 4/22/1995]

Sign for the Dreamland Motel, where Timothy McVeigh is staying. [Source: Guardian]Lenard and Diana White, a farm couple from Cheney, Kansas, wake up from an uneventful evening spent in Room 29 of the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, Kansas. They had driven to Junction City to meet their son, who had just been discharged from the Army at Fort Riley, and their new grandchild. They stopped at the Dreamland the previous evening after a storm began brewing. Unbeknownst to them, the Whites are four rooms down from Timothy McVeigh, who is planning to execute the Oklahoma City bombing (see April 13, 1995). According to Diana White, she wakes up around 8 a.m. and leaves the room to get some morning coffee. She sees what she will later describe as “an old, faded yellow car” with an Arizona license plate. Her description matches that of McVeigh’s 1977 Mercury Marquis. “I have an old car in the dead car pile,” she will elaborate, “a small Ford, that is that color. That was a favorite color of 1977, and it just gave me nothing but trouble.” She returns to her room with coffee, and asks her husband, “Can you believe that they drove that car from Arizona?” The Whites take a stroll outside and walk past the Mercury. Diana White will later recall the license plate as being firmly attached. “I don’t know what it was fastened with, bolts or screws or what. But I know it was an Arizona tag, and it was on there solid.” The Whites leave for home around 9:30 a.m. They do not claim to have seen a Ryder truck at the motel, which conflicts with the motel owner’s recollection of seeing one that day but jibes with FBI records that show McVeigh picks up the truck the day after (see 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. April 17, 1995). [Serrano, 1998, pp. 135-136]

The Murrah Federal Building before the bombing. [Source: Oklahoma City National Memorial (.com)]Oklahoma City bomb plotter Terry Nichols (see October 12, 1993 - January 1994, November 5, 1994, and November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995) meets his partner Timothy McVeigh (see April 15, 1995) at a gas station next to a Dairy Queen in Herington, Kansas, where Nichols lives (see (February 20, 1995)). (McVeigh had expected to meet Nichols at Geary State Park in Kansas earlier this morning, but Nichols failed to appear.) The two travel separately to Oklahoma City to scout the location for planting the fertilizer bomb they have constructed (see December 22 or 23, 1988 and September 13, 1994); McVeigh leaves his getaway car (see April 13, 1995), backing it up against a brick wall and leaving a note (that obscures the car’s VIN number) asking that the car not be towed. They then drive back to Kansas, arriving sometime before 2:00 a.m on April 17. Nichols drops McVeigh off at a McDonald’s restaurant in Junction City, and drives back to Herington. Nichols has already told McVeigh he does not want to be directly involved in planting the bomb (see March 1995 and March 31 - April 12, 1995). When the bomb detonates three days later (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), Nichols is at his Kansas home. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; Nicole Nichols, 2003]Different Account of Events - In statements given to authorities shortly after the bombing (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995 and April 25, 1995), Nichols will tell a very different version of events. Nichols will say that on April 16, Easter Sunday, he plans on taking his family to mass at a local Catholic church, drives to the church, and returns with the news that there are no services being held. Instead, Nichols will say, he and the family drive 25 miles to St. Xavier’s in Junction City. They then return home and have an Easter meal. Sometime after 3:00 p.m., he will say, McVeigh calls him and asks him to pick him up in Oklahoma City, asks him to tell his wife Marife that he is driving to Omaha, not Oklahoma City, and asks him to “keep this between us.” McVeigh, Nichols will say, has a television that once belonged to Nichols’s ex-wife Lana Padilla, and wants Nichols to come get the television. Nichols will say he wants the television as his son Joshua, who usually lives with Padilla but is visiting him, wants to watch television during his stay. Joshua asks to go with his father to Omaha and Nichols turns him down. Nichols drives from Herington to Oklahoma City, a five-hour trip, picks up McVeigh, and drives to Junction City, Kansas. Nichols will say that he drives by the Murrah Federal Building two or three times before seeing McVeigh in an alley and picking him up. During the drive to Junction City, McVeigh tells Nichols, “Something big is going to happen” (see April 15, 1995). Nichols, who will claim to be unaware of any plans to detonate a bomb (see March 31 - April 12, 1995), asks, “Are you going to rob a bank?” to which McVeigh repeats his previous statement, “Something big is going to happen.” According to Nichols’s story, he then drops McVeigh off in Junction City and returns to Herington sometime after midnight. Marife Nichols will confirm that Nichols brings a television into the house with him; she will see it when she wakes up on April 17. It is old and almost completely unusable, being without an antenna; Nichols will later get cable television activated. Nichols will claim that on April 17, the family watches rented videos on the television, including The Lion King, and will claim that he spends some of the day puttering around the house, trying to fix a broken fuel meter that he wants to resell. He will say that he takes the family to eat dinner at a steakhouse that evening, then drives to the airport to see Joshua off (see (6:00 p.m.) April 17, 1995). Nichols will say that he will not hear from McVeigh again until April 18 (see Late Evening, April 17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995, and Early Afternoon, April 18, 1995). [New York Times, 4/26/1995; Associated Press, 3/16/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 146-148]

A series of phone calls provides evidence to some of a larger conspiracy at work behind the imminent Oklahoma City bombing (see (April 1) - April 18, 1995 and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). April 16 Calls - A phone call from the Decker, Michigan, residence of Kevin Nicholas, a friend of bomber Timothy McVeigh (see December 18, 1994 and January 1 - January 8, 1995) is placed to a number in Wilmington, North Carolina (the phone log incorrectly identifies the city as “Williamington”). The phone conversation lasts one minute. McVeigh’s co-conspirator, Terry Nichols, is from Decker (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990), and both he and McVeigh have friends there (see Summer 1992). At 8:02 p.m., a phone call is placed from the St. George, Utah, residence of John Bangerter Sr. to the Restaurant Tea Service in Flagstaff, Arizona, lasting 23 minutes. Bangerter’s son John Bangerter Jr. is a member of the Army of Israel (sometimes called the Sons of Israel), a white supremacist and Christian Identity (see 1960s and After) militia group. At 9:57 p.m., a phone call is placed from Bangerter’s residence to Nicholas’s residence. That call lasts 38 minutes. (Source Lawrence Meyer will assume that Bangerter Jr. places the calls, as he does not have a telephone in his name.) April 17 Calls - At 1:57 p.m., a phone call from the Nicholas residence is placed to the same Wilmington number. The call lasts one minute. At the same time, a call from the Bangerter residence is placed to the Oklahoma City Radisson Inn, lasting one minute. At 1:59 p.m., Bangerter Jr. calls the Restaurant Tea Service in Flagstaff, and talks for one minute. At the same time, a phone call from the Bangerter residence goes to the Oklahoma City Radisson Inn. April 18 Calls - At 8:49 a.m., a call from Bangerter’s house is placed to the Restaurant Tea Service in Flagstaff, lasting 25 minutes. At 6:39 p.m., a call from Bangerter’s house is placed to the Oklahoma City Radisson Inn, lasting 11 minutes. At 9:02 p.m., a call from Bangerter’s house is placed to the Oklahoma City Radisson Inn, lasting one minute. April 19 Calls - In the hours after the bombing, two calls are placed from the Bangerter residence. The first takes place at 12:34 p.m., to a phone number in Las Vegas, and lasts 45 minutes. The second takes place at 2:41 p.m., to the Restaurant Tea Service in Flagstaff, and lasts 37 minutes. Meaning Unclear - The telephone records will later be collected by McVeigh’s lawyers for his defense against charges stemming from the bombing (see Early 2005). In and of themselves, the phone calls prove nothing, particularly as no information about the content of the conversations is made available. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]

On April 17, Timothy McVeigh, planning to carry out the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) and apparently casting about for someone to help him (see March 31 - April 12, 1995 and April 5, 1995), calls his old Army friend and roommate, John Kelso from his room at the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, Kansas (see April 13, 1995). McVeigh shared an apartment with Kelso during their days at Fort Riley, Kansas (see January - March 1991 and After). Kelso, living in an Alliance, Nebraska, apartment, does not answer the call; he is at his job as an engineer on the Burlington Northern Railroad. Press reports will later state that Kelso hears a voice on his answering machine say to someone else on the caller’s end: “He’s not home. He’s at work.” On April 21, two days after the bombing, FBI agents, tracing the call to the Dreamland Motel, quiz Kelso about the call. Kelso says he did not even know who made the call until the agents inform him it was McVeigh, and he tells them he has not seen McVeigh since McVeigh left the Army in 1992. Kelso will characterize McVeigh as a “froot loop.” [New York Times, 8/13/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996] McVeigh will later deny placing the call. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]

Junction City, Kansas, resident Connie Hood, who with her husband is going to the Dreamland Motel to visit her friend David King, has to wait to pull into the motel parking lot to let a large Ryder truck pull into the lot ahead of her. Three days ago, Mrs. Hood saw a man at the motel whom she will later say resembles a sketch of an unidentified “person of interest” in the upcoming Oklahoma City bombings, “John Doe No. 2” (see April 13, 1995 and April 20, 1995), in Room 23, the room next to Room 25, occupied by Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Mrs. Hood will say that today she sees both doors of the Ryder cab open, and watches the driver, whom she will say is not McVeigh, walk into the motel office. The driver has dark hair and resembles the man she saw on the previous occasion. Mrs. Hood says that minutes later she sees the same man leave the motel office and climb into the driver’s side of the truck. Around the same time, according to Mr. Hood, a man he will identify as McVeigh comes out of a motel room, gets into the passenger side of the truck, and the truck drives away. King, staying at the motel, will later tell authorities that he sees the Ryder truck with a trailer attached to it around 3:30 p.m. Inside the trailer is something large wrapped in dingy white canvas; King will say: “It was a squarish shape and it came to a point on top. It was about three or four feet high.” Later in the day, the trailer is gone, but the truck remains. King will also recall seeing a third party, someone resembling “John Doe No. 2,” in Room 23, next to McVeigh’s Room 25, a recollection bolstered by a similar statement from his friend Connie Hood, who will say she also saw the man both on April 15 and tonight. The motel manager will say that no one is registered for Room 23, but King will later say he hears the television going in 23, and also say he saw McVeigh and a man who resembles McVeigh’s accomplice Terry Nichols loitering around the room and getting sodas from a machine. Investigators will pore over Room 23 for clues. [New York Times, 4/30/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]

A large Ryder truck similar to that rented by Timothy McVeigh. [Source: RevGalBlogPals (.com)]Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, April 13, 1995, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) stays in his room at the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, Kansas, for most of the day. Around 3:00 p.m., he walks to a convenience store and calls a taxi. The taxi drops him off at a McDonald’s restaurant on the corner of I-40 and Washington Street. A security camera films McVeigh buying a fruit pie and walking out of the restaurant around 3:57 p.m. McVeigh walks from the McDonald’s to Elliott’s Body Shop, where he has reserved a 20-foot rental Ryder truck (see April 15, 1995). It is raining; McVeigh has no hat. A young man in a Pontiac Fiero picks up McVeigh and drives him to Elliott’s. The manager, Eldon Elliott, is in the shop, along with an employee, Vicki Beemer. Beemer asks McVeigh for his driver’s license number, and he gives her the number he has memorized from the fraudulent license he has made for “Robert Kling” (see Mid-March, 1995). The information he provides is: Bob Kling, Social Security Number 962-42-9694, South Dakota driver’s license number YF942A6, home address 428 Malt Drive, Redfield, South Dakota. The listed designation is 428 Maple Drive, Omaha, Nebraska. While McVeigh is waiting for the transaction to process, he makes small talk with Beemer about Easter and paying taxes; Beemer will later remember smiling at McVeigh, and after seeing the birth date of April 19, 1972 on the Kling license, telling him, “I’ve been married longer than you’ve been alive.” McVeigh had asked for a dolly, but the shop has none to provide him; instead, Beemer calls Waters TruValue Hardware and reserves a dolly for him. McVeigh takes possession of the Ryder truck, and drives to the hardware store to pick up the dolly, in the process making an attempt to avoid being filmed by the store’s security camera. He is given the dolly, throws it in the truck, and drives back to the motel. By now it is around 5:00 p.m. He sees Eric McGown, motel owner Lea McGown’s son, who tells him he cannot park the truck near the swimming pool. Instead, McVeigh parks the truck in front of the motel against the sign. He returns to his room, where he stays the night. During the evening, according to one source, he destroys the Kling ID by peeling back the plastic and burning the paper, then throwing the ashes and the plastic in the toilet. [New York Times, 4/26/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 148-149; Douglas O. Linder, 2001] (When McVeigh is arrested, he apparently presents the Kling driver’s license to the state trooper who pulls him over—see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995. Either the reports that McVeigh destroys the Kling driver’s license are incorrect, or McVeigh destroys another Kling ID.) Garbled Recollection of Taxi Drive - Taxi driver David Ferris takes McVeigh to the McDonald’s. It is a short drive, and the fare is only $3.65; McVeigh gives Ferris no tip. Ferris will later be questioned by FBI agents, and the taxi driver will tell a garbled, contradictory story. At first, he breaks down and tearfully denies ever seeing McVeigh, saying, “I never picked up McVeigh.” Later he will change his story and tell of taking a man strongly resembling McVeigh, wearing a white T-shirt and Levis, from the convenience store to the McDonald’s. He will recall the man as having a military bearing and a crew cut, and being very polite. Asked if it was McVeigh, Ferris will say, “In all probability, yes.” [Serrano, 1998, pp. 148]Second Man Sighting Begins 'John Doe No. 2' Controversy - Residents and visitors to the motel later testify to seeing McVeigh and another, unidentified man with the Ryder truck well before 5:00 p.m, a man described as lantern-jawed, with a tattoo on his upper arm, and wearing a baseball cap; it is this sighting that begins the controversy of “John Doe No. 2,” McVeigh’s supposed accomplice (see 3:00 p.m. April 17, 1995). Beemer and Elliott later tell investigators that they believe McVeigh is in the company of a second man, though they will be unable to provide a description of any kind. Elliott will later say: “There was another gentleman standing there in the corner. I just barely glanced at him as I walked by.” Beemer will say: “I don’t know who he was. It was just another man. They just came straight to the counter. They were both in the office.” Another shop employee, Tom Kessinger, will later say he, too, saw the second man, remembering the blue-and-white baseball cap and the tattoo, but Kessinger will fail to provide an accurate description of McVeigh, saying that he was wearing “military camo” and khaki pants, both of which are inaccurate. FBI investigators will later tell Robert Millar, the leader of the white supremacist community living at Elohim City (see 1983, January 23, 1993 - Early 1994, April 1993, October 12, 1993 - January 1994, August 1994 - March 1995, August - September 1994, September 12, 1994 and After, September 13, 1994 and After, November 1994, December 1994, February 1995, March 1995, (April 1) - April 18, 1995, April 5, 1995, and April 8, 1995), that McVeigh calls the community on April 18, in an effort to tie the “John Doe No. 2” sighting to someone in the community. It is possible the FBI mistakes that alleged call for one McVeigh makes to an old Army buddy (see April 17-21, 1995). [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 149] Author Richard A. Serrano will later note: “The FBI was able to show that McVeigh had ridden alone in a taxi that afternoon from the Dreamland Motel to a McDonald’s restaurant near the Ryder agency. And at the McDonald’s, McVeigh was caught on camera—again alone. From there, the FBI assumed, he walked along the frontage road to the Ryder shop. Why would he need anyone with him at all?” [Serrano, 1998, pp. 260]

Around 9:00 p.m., major league baseball scout Larry Wild is pumping gas for himself at Cardie’s Corner, a Herington, Kansas, gas station and convenience store. Wild, a Herington native, will tell investigators that he sees Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, April 13, 1995, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) and an unidentified man standing near one another inside the store. He does not recognize either man. He will say he does not see them leave; investigators will note that the house of McVeigh’s fellow conspirator Terry Nichols (see (February 20, 1995) and (6:00 p.m.) April 17, 1995) is only a few blocks away. Wild will say that the unidentified man fits the general appearance of the “John Doe No. 2” sketch (see April 15, 1995 and 3:00 p.m. April 17, 1995), though it is not an identical resemblance. Wild will describe the man as shorter and stockier than McVeigh, with dark, brushed-back hair and a dark complexion. He speculates the man may be Hispanic, Native American, or both. The man wears a light-blue denim jacket, Wild will recall. [New York Times, 12/3/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]

David Hollaway of the Cause Foundation speaks to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see Noon and After, April 18, 1995 and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) sometime today via telephone. The Cause Foundation is a non-profit organization founded to provide legal help to Americans with far-right views and/or militia ties. [Stormfront (.org), 1/1994; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996] FBI investigators will later show that McVeigh makes the phone call to Hollaway. Apparently McVeigh does not identify himself by name, but simply calls himself “a patriot.” He tells Hollaway, whose group is suing the government over the Branch Davidian tragedy (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After), that the lawsuit is pointless because “justice is corrupt” and the government would beat the lawsuit. Hollaway agrees with McVeigh’s general statements, but says: “[I]f we win the case, it will put a damper on the government. If we lose it, we will put hypocrisy on trial.” McVeigh retorts that actions, not lawsuits, are needed now. “These people in government need to be sent a message,” he says. Hollaway warns: “Watch what you say. It’s not smart to use a telephone to discuss matters.” According to reporter Howard Pankratz, Hollaway gets “an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach” during the phone call. Asked about McVeigh’s statement about “sen[ding] a message,” Hollaway says, “Most callers don’t mean anything by it, and if they do I don’t want to know it.” He will go on to say that most of the phone calls he gets are from “ranters,” but McVeigh “sounded intelligent.” Hollaway will report the phone call to the FBI after the bombing, who will then tell him the identity of his caller, and he will later complain that McVeigh’s lawyers attempt to use his conversation with McVeigh to construct a conspiracy theory of the bombing that would either exonerate their client or lessen his culpability. Hollaway will say that he immediately connected the conversation with McVeigh to the bombing the next day: “It clicked that instant, right then. They [the news people] were running around, and I was going: ‘Holy s___! I will be lucky to live through this. This is really bad.’” For a brief time, Hollaway will worry that he might be connected to the bombing, because he was a bomb technician in the military. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 173; Denver Post, 3/11/1997]

Two men enter a hair salon, Gracie & Company, in Junction City, Kansas, for a haircut. The men will later be identified as “John Doe No. 1” and “John Doe No. 2,” suspects in the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 20, 1995). Salon owner Kathy Henderson will identify the two to the FBI, and later to the press. One man, “No. 2,” with brown hair and a square jaw, asks for a haircut for both himself and his friend. The other, “No. 1” (later identified as Timothy McVeigh, who will detonate the bomb), has light skin and a crewcut. Henderson will identify the two after seeing the sketches released by the FBI. Henderson turns the two away because, as she will recall, the salon was “all booked up.” She will recall of “No. 2”: “It was strange. He did not need a haircut. He was very well groomed.” In subsequent interviews, Junction City residents will recall seeing McVeigh in several places over the last few weeks, usually in the company of his unidentified friend (see April 15, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995, and 8:00 a.m. April 18, 1995). [New York Times, 4/22/1995] This witness identification clashes with the chain of events as laid out by McVeigh and the FBI (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995 and Noon and After, April 18, 1995).

David King, staying at the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, later tells investigators that around 3:30 a.m. he is drinking beer and watching movies with a friend when he hears a noise. He looks out of his motel room window and sees a man he later identifies as Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) sitting in the passenger seat of a large Ryder truck (see 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. April 17, 1995). According to King, the dome light is on, the glove compartment is open, and McVeigh is poring over a map. King leaves the motel just before dawn and sees McVeigh still sitting in the Ryder truck. When King returns between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m., he notices that the truck is gone. Federal investigators later determine that McVeigh leaves the motel for good sometime before 5:00 a.m. McVeigh will later tell his lawyers that he wakes up around 4:00 a.m. and leaves the motel around 5:00 a.m., but does not sit in the truck as King says. [New York Times, 4/30/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996] King saw McVeigh at the motel the day before (see 3:00 p.m. April 17, 1995). Another witness, motel owner Lea McGown, will say that she wakes up around 4:00 a.m. and sees McVeigh in the driver’s seat of the Ryder truck (not the passenger seat as King alleges). The dome light is on, she will recall, and McVeigh is hunched over as if he is studying a map. By 5:00 a.m., she will recall, the truck is gone. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 150]

Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) leaves the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, Kansas (see 3:30 a.m. April 18, 1995), and drives his rented Ryder truck (see 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. April 17, 1995) to Herington, Kansas, where he has planned to meet with his co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see (February 20, 1995)) at 6:00 a.m. The plan is for McVeigh and Nichols to meet in the parking lot of the Pizza Hut near the storage unit where they have stored materials for the bomb (see September 22, 1994), leave Nichols’s truck at the Pizza Hut, and ride in the truck to the storage shed. Nichols, who has told McVeigh he does not want to participate directly in the bombing (see March 1995 and March 31 - April 12, 1995), does not appear. Nichols will later tell FBI investigators that around 6:00 a.m., McVeigh calls him asking to borrow his pickup truck to pick up some items and look at vehicles, and asking him to pick up McVeigh on his way to an auction in Fort Riley, Kansas (see November 20-21, 1997). At 6:15 a.m., McVeigh begins loading the truck himself, first loading empty drums and then beginning to load the seven boxes of fuel-oil gel. At 6:30 a.m., Nichols arrives in his truck. McVeigh has already loaded 20 50-pound bags of fertilizer into the truck. Nichols wants to leave and wait until sunrise to finish loading the truck, but McVeigh refuses. Nichols drives his truck to the Pizza Hut and walks back to the shed. Nichols then helps McVeigh load another 70 bags of fertilizer and three 55-gallon drums of nitromethane. McVeigh and Nichols leave in the shed a Ruger Mini 30 rifle, a duffel bag, LBE rifles and extra magazines for the guns, a smoke grenade, a hand grenade, a CS gas grenade, a shortwave radio, three KinePal explosive sticks similar to dynamite sticks, two changes of McVeigh’s clothing, three license plates, and a shovel. McVeigh tells Nichols, “If I don’t come back for a while, you’ll clean out the storage shed.” Nichols and McVeigh drive to Geary Lake State Park, Nichols in his pickup truck, McVeigh in the Ryder. [New York Times, 4/26/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 150; Douglas O. Linder, 2001]Nichols Tells Different Story - Nichols will later describe to investigators (see April 25, 1995) a somewhat different chain of events. According to Nichols, McVeigh calls him at 6 a.m. and asks him to come to Junction City; according to Nichols’s statement, he drives to Fort Riley, where he intends to spend most of the day at an auction (see November 20-21, 1997), and lets McVeigh have the truck. Nichols will say that McVeigh returns the truck later this afternoon and the two drive to a storage shed, where McVeigh instructs Nichols to clean out the shed if he does not “come back in a while.” [New York Times, 4/26/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]Witnesses See McVeigh in Junction City, McVeigh Will Say Witnesses Are Mistaken - Two witnesses will later say they see McVeigh and another, unidentified man park a Ryder truck in front of a Hardee’s restaurant in Junction City sometime during the morning, but McVeigh will later tell his lawyers that this does not occur. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]

Two witnesses see whom they believe to be Oklahoma City bombing suspects Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, (February 20, 1995), and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) at a diner in Herington, Kansas. Barbara Whittenberg and her husband Robert own the Santa Fe Trail diner in Herington; the restaurant is near Highway 77, which leads to Junction City (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995). Early in the morning, Barbara Whittenberg sees McVeigh, Nichols, and a third man she does not recognize eating together in her restaurant. They have three separate vehicles in the parking lot—a white car with an Arizona license plate (see April 13, 1995), a Ryder truck (see 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. April 17, 1995 and 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995), and a pickup truck, presumably the truck owned by Nichols. Whittenberg’s son Charlie notices the car’s Arizona license plate and strikes up a conversation with the three, a conversation that Barbara Whittenberg joins. Whittenberg recognizes Nichols as an occasional patron, and recognizes McVeigh from a single visit he made sometime earlier. The third man has a dark complexion, she will later tell investigators, and looks Hawaiian. She will say that the third man bears a general resemblance to the sketch of “John Doe No. 2” (see April 20, 1995), but his face is thinner, his cheekbones more prominent, and his nose wider than what the sketch depicts. During their brief conversation, she asks where they are going, and the third man replies, “Oklahoma.” She replies that she has relatives in a town south of Oklahoma City; the remark, she will recall, stops the conversation. “It was like ice water was thrown on it,” she later says. The men stay for about an hour, she will recall, and leave around 9:00 a.m. After 2:00 p.m., she and her husband drive to Junction City, she will recall, going past the entrance to Geary State Fishing Lake, the site where the FBI will later say Nichols and McVeigh assemble the bomb. The Whittenbergs see a Ryder truck parked by the lake and think of the three men. The truck appears identical to the one they had at the diner. “They couldn’t find a place to stay,” she will remember saying. According to chronologies assembled by the FBI and McVeigh’s lawyers, the two have left the lake before 2:00 (see 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995). [New York Times, 12/3/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]

A remote, yet accessible area of Geary State Lake Park. [Source: Leisure and Sports Review (.com)]Oklahoma City bombing conspirators Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, having finished loading McVeigh’s rented Ryder truck with the bomb components (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995), arrive at Geary State Lake Park, Kansas, where they begin assembling the bomb. (A diner owner will later say she sees McVeigh, Nichols, and a third man eating breakfast at her establishment between 8 and 9 a.m.—see 8:00 a.m. April 18, 1995. It is possible that the 8:15 a.m. time of arrival is slightly erroneous.) Each 55-gallon drum has the contents of seven 50-pound bags of fertilizer and seven 20-pound buckets of nitromethane. They use a bathroom scale to weigh the buckets of nitromethane. They slit open the bags of ammonium nitrate, pour the fuel into empty plastic barrels, and mix in the racing fuel, turning the white fertilizer pellets into bright pink balls. After 10 minutes or so, the components will blend sufficiently to cause a tremendous explosion if detonated by blasting caps and dynamite, which they wrap around the barrels. McVeigh runs the main fuse to the entire batch through a hole in the storage compartment into the cab of the truck, allowing him to light the fuse from inside the cab. When they finish, Nichols nails down the barrels and McVeigh changes clothes, giving his dirty clothes to Nichols for disposal. Nichols also takes the 90 empty bags of fertilizer. The rest of the “tools” are placed in the cone of the bomb. They finish sometime around noon. Nichols tells McVeigh that his wife Marife (see July - December 1990) is leaving him for good. Nichols says he will leave McVeigh some money and a telephone card in the Herington storage shed (see September 22, 1994). They shake hands and Nichols wishes McVeigh good luck. Before they drive off in their separate vehicles, Nichols warns McVeigh that the truck is leaking. As they drive away, McVeigh sees two trucks pulling in. [New York Times, 4/26/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 150-151; Douglas O. Linder, 2001] Nichols will drive from the lake to a military surplus auction at Fort Riley, Kansas. He then picks up address labels and business cards for his new surplus-reselling business (see April 6, 1995). McVeigh will drive back to the Dreamland Motel to check out, and head towards Oklahoma City (see Noon and After, April 18, 1995). [Serrano, 1998, pp. 151] Witnesses will later tell FBI investigators that around 9:00 a.m. they see a large Ryder truck parked next to a blue or brown pickup truck at the lake. Around 10:00 a.m., Sergeant Richard Wahl of Fort Riley and his son arrive at Geary Lake about 50 yards away from where McVeigh and Nichols are mixing the bomb. As the morning is cold and rainy, they wait for about an hour trying to decide whether or not to put their boat in the water. Wahl sees the Ryder truck and the blue pickup parked together near the boat ramp, though he cannot see anyone near the two vehicles. He will recall seeing the side door on the Ryder open and later seeing it closed. Other visitors to the park say they did not see any large yellow truck, and some will claim to have seen the truck at the park a week before, adding to the confusion surrounding the circumstances. Investigators will later find an oily substance which smells like fuel oil at the spot indicated by witnesses that the trucks were parked (see April 15-16, 1995). [New York Times, 5/12/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 150-151]

Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, having finished constructing the bomb with his fellow conspirator Terry Nichols at a state park in Kansas (see 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995), drives his rented Ryder truck carrying the assembled bomb components towards Oklahoma City. He stops either in Arkansas City, Kansas, or Winfield, Kansas, to get gas, and begins driving down Route 166, stopping at a Total gas station near the Kansas-Oklahoma border. He then pulls into a rest stop at Emporia, Kansas, on State Highway 77. He discards his map and his MREs (military meals-ready-to-eat). He checks the load to ensure that it has not shifted. He puts the truck rental agreement, in the name of “Bob Kling” (see Mid-March, 1995), and a forged student ID in the name of “Tim Tuttle” (see October 12, 1993 - January 1994) in the midst of the 55-gallon drums containing the bomb components, presumably so they will be destroyed in the blast. (McVeigh later tells his lawyers that the ID bore the name Kling, and not Tuttle, though he will also indicate that he has previously destroyed the Kling ID—see 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. April 17, 1995.) He takes I-35 to the Blackwell exit near Ponca City, and pulls into the truck parking lot so that the leaking diesel fuel can leak onto the grass. He eats at the McDonald’s restaurant across the street. Wearing a black hat, black jeans, a blue coat, sunglasses, and a pistol in a shoulder holster, he walks into either a Best Western or Days Inn to rent a room, then decides against it. Instead, he parks the truck for the night and sleeps in the truck. [New York Times, 4/26/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Douglas O. Linder, 2001]

A gas station attendant, Fred Skrdla, sees a large yellow Ryder truck drive into his station, the Cimarron Travel Plaza truck stop, outside of Billings, Oklahoma. Billings is about 80 miles north of Oklahoma City. Skrdla will later tell investigators that he sees a man, presumably Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see April 15, 1995), buy gasoline sometime between 1:00 and 3:00 a.m. The man pays in cash, Skrdla remembers. Skrdla will say he is busy at the time and does not recall if the man has a companion. When he later sees composite drawings of “John Doe No. 1” and “John Doe No. 2” (see April 20, 1995), he will recognize one of them as the man who bought the gasoline. When he later sees television coverage of McVeigh being “perp walked” out of the Noble County Courthouse in Perry, Oklahoma (see April 21, 1995), he is sure that the man he saw paying for the gasoline was McVeigh. [New York Times, 1/13/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 151]

A surveillance camera south of Wichita, Kansas, films a Ryder truck with two men inside and two other men in a dark pickup following closely behind. Some believe the Ryder truck is driven by Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), accompanied by unidentified accomplices. Witnesses say the two men in the Ryder truck stop for coffee sometime in the early morning hours at Jackie’s Farmers Store in Mulhall, Oklahoma, off of Highway 35, about an hour north of Oklahoma City. Witnesses will later say that Mulhall postmaster Mary Hunnicutt is in the store and stands next to McVeigh. Hunnicutt will later tell reporters that she has been advised by the FBI not to discuss her experience, because she may be called upon to testify. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996] These sightings do not coincide with McVeigh’s own chronology of events (see Noon and After, April 18, 1995).

Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) wakes up near Ponca City, Oklahoma (see Noon and After, April 18, 1995), and at about 7:00 a.m. begins driving toward Oklahoma City in a rented Ryder truck (see April 15, 1995) containing a massive fertilizer bomb (see 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995). McVeigh will later tell authors Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, who will write his authorized biography American Terrorist, that he has cold spaghetti for breakfast. “Meals ready to eat… are meant for high intensity. I knew I was going through a firestorm and I would need the energy,” he will say. He will tell the authors that he made an “executive decision” to move up the timing of the blast several hours; he will also tell them that he drives to Oklahoma City alone. He wears a T-shirt with a drawing of Abraham Lincoln in a “Wanted” poster and the words (shouted by John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln’s assassin) “SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS” (“thus ever to tyrants”); the shirt also features the Thomas Jefferson quote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” and a picture of a tree dripping with blood. McVeigh takes Interstate 35 to Interstate 40 to Interstate 235, and takes the Harrison/Fourth Street exit. According to Mike Moroz, a service manager at Jerry’s Tire in downtown Oklahoma City, two men in a large Ryder truck stop between 8:25 a.m. and 8:35 a.m. to ask directions to Fifth and Harvey Streets, the location of the Murrah Building. Moroz will later identify the two men as McVeigh and an as-yet unidentified man, shorter, darker-skinned, and wearing a baseball cap; he later tells a USA Today reporter that McVeigh gets out of the driver’s side of the cab and walks over to speak with him, while the other man remains in the cab. Moroz’s version of events will remain unverified. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Denver Post, 6/3/1997; New York Times, 6/3/1997; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; Douglas O. Linder, 2006] Three witnesses later say they see McVeigh near the Murrah Building around 8:40 a.m. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]Alternate Versions of Events - An alternate version of events has McVeigh traveling to Oklahoma City with white supremacist Michael Brescia (see (April 1) - April 18, 1995 and April 8, 1995) in the passenger seat, which would explain why Moroz sees McVeigh and another man with him. And another version of events is later given by Ed Kirkpatrick, a local structural engineer, who will claim to see McVeigh and “a white guy” in his thirties or forties meeting a Middle Eastern man at a downtown McDonald’s around 8:30 a.m. According to Kirkpatrick, McVeigh sends the white man for coffee while he talks to the Middle Eastern man sitting in a Dodge Dynasty with a blue tag. The white man becomes upset, Kirkpatrick will say, and McVeigh leaves him at the McDonald’s. Kirkpatrick says he witnesses the white man throw a .45 handgun into a nearby dumpster. Yet another version of events will be provided by an unnamed mortgage company employee, who says he sees the Ryder truck being followed by a yellow Mercury at Main and Broadway; the employee will claim he sees McVeigh driving the Mercury. This version of events is echoed by a statement given by lawyer James R. Linehan, who will say that he sees McVeigh driving erratically in a battered yellow 1977 Mercury that matches the description of McVeigh’s getaway car (see April 13, 1995), first spotting the Mercury stopped beside him at a red light on the south side of the Murrah Building. He will describe the driver as hunched over the wheel and with his face obscured, either by a hood or by hair (McVeigh’s hair is close-cropped and McVeigh is not wearing a hooded pullover). No one is in the car with him, Linehan will say. The Mercury suddenly “peels out” and runs the red light, Linehan will say, then circles the building, drives around the Murrah Building, and then drives into its underground building. Linehan will remember the car as having no rear license plate. Before the car disappears into the underground parking garage, Linehan gets a better look at the driver, and Linehan will say he has a sharp nose, no facial hair, a sharp chin, and smooth features. Linehan will say that when he sees news footage of McVeigh’s yellow Mercury on television, he leaps to his feet, points at the TV screen, and yells: “That’s the car! That’s the car!” [Stickney, 1996, pp. 251; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Douglas O. Linder, 2006] Linehan’s version of events will be reported by Los Angeles Times reporter Richard A. Serrano in an August 1995 story. Linehan will be interviewed by the FBI, but will not testify before the grand jury investigating the bombing. He will also be interviewed by lawyers representing McVeigh. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 251-252]

The Alfred P. Murrah Building after being bombed. [Source: CBS News]A truck bomb destroys the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people in America’s worst domestic terrorist attack. Timothy McVeigh, later convicted in the bombing, has ideological roots both in the Patriot world and among neo-Nazis like William Pierce, whose novel, The Turner Diaries (see 1978), served as a blueprint for the attack. [Washington Post, 4/20/1995; Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001; Clarke, 2004, pp. 127] Initially, many believe that no American set off the bomb, and suspect Islamist terrorists of actually carrying out the bombing (see 10:00 a.m. April 19, 1995 and After). Their suspicions prove groundless. Investigators will find that the bomb is constructed of some 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, carried in 20 or so blue plastic 55-gallon barrels arranged inside a rented Ryder truck (see April 15, 1995). The bomb is detonated by a slow-burning safety fuse, most likely lit by hand. The fuse is attached to a much faster-burning detonation cord (“det cord”) which ignites the fertilizer and fuel-oil mixture. [New York Times, 4/27/1995] The Murrah Federal Building houses a number of federal agencies, including offices for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF); the Social Security Administration; the Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Veterans Affairs, and Agriculture departments; and the Secret Service. [Washington Post, 4/20/1995] It encompasses an entire city block, between 5th and 4th Streets and Harvey and Robinson Streets, and features a U-shaped, indented drive on 5th that allows for quick pickup and delivery parking. The entire building’s facade on this side is made of glass, allowing passersby to see into the offices in the building, as well as into the America’s Kids day care center on the second floor, which by this time is filling with children. It is in this driveway that McVeigh parks his truck. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 99-102]Entering the City - McVeigh drives into Oklahoma City, entering around 8:30 a.m. from his overnight stop in Ponca City, Oklahoma; the details reported of his entrance into the city vary (see 7:00 a.m. - 8:35 a.m., April 19, 1995). At 8:55 a.m., a security camera captures the Ryder truck as it heads towards downtown Oklahoma City [Douglas O. Linder, 2006] , a sighting bolstered by three people leaving the building who later say they saw the truck parked in front of the Murrah Building around this time. At 8:57, a security camera captures an image of McVeigh’s Ryder truck being parked outside the Murrah Building in a handicapped zone. One survivor of the blast, Marine recruiter Michael Norfleet, later recalls seeing the Ryder truck parked just outside the building next to the little circle drive on 5th Street leading up to the main entrance of the building. Norfleet had parked his black Ford Ranger in front of the Ryder. McVeigh Lights Fuses - McVeigh drives the Ryder truck west past the Murrah Building on NW Fourth Street, turns north on a one-way street, and turns right on Fifth Street. He pulls the truck over and parks near the Firestone store, next to a chain-link fence. He then lights the five-minute fuses from inside the cab (see 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995), sets the parking brake, drops the key behind the seat, opens the door, locks the truck, exits, and shuts the door behind him. A man later claims to have hit his brakes to avoid someone matching McVeigh’s description as he crossed Fifth Street around 9:00 a.m. McVeigh walks quickly toward a nearby YMCA building where he has hidden his getaway car, a battered yellow Mercury Marquis (see April 13, 1995), in the adjoining alleyway, crossing Robinson Street and crossing another street to get to the alleyway. He begins to jog as he approaches his car. He later says he remembers a woman looking at him as she is walking down the steps to enter the building; he will describe her as white, in her mid-30s, with dirty blonde hair. According to McVeigh’s own recollection, he is about 20 feet into the alley when the bomb goes off. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 184-185; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 158; Douglas O. Linder, 2006; The Oklahoman, 4/2009]Truck Explodes - At 9:02 a.m., the truck explodes, destroying most of the Murrah Building and seriously damaging many nearby buildings. Eventually, it will be determined that 168 people die in the blast, including 19 children. Over 500 are injured. The children are in the second-story day care center just above the parking space where McVeigh leaves the Ryder truck. McVeigh will later tell his biographers that he is lifted off his feet by the power of the blast. Devastation and Death - When the bomb detonates, the day care center and the children plummet into the basement. The building, constructed with large glass windows, collapses, sending a wave of flying glass shards and debris into the building and the surrounding area. The oldest victim is 73-year-old Charles Hurlbert, who has come to the Social Security office on the first floor. Hurlbert’s wife Jean, 67, also dies in the blast. The youngest victim is four-month-old Gabeon Bruce, whose mother is also in the Social Security office. One victim, Rebecca Anderson, is a nurse who runs towards the building to render assistance. She never makes it to the building; she is struck in the head by a piece of falling debris and will die in a hospital four days after the blast. Her heart and kidneys will be transplanted into survivors of the bombing. [Denver Post, 6/3/1997; New York Times, 6/3/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 153-154; Oklahoma City Journal Record, 3/29/2001] Sherri Sparks, who has friends still unaccounted for in the building, tells a reporter in the hours after the blast, “Oh, I can’t stand the thought of… those innocent children, sitting there playing, thinking they’re safe, and then this happens.” The explosion leaves a 30-foot-wide, 8-foot-deep crater in the street that is covered by the wreckage of the building’s upper floors. The north face of the nine-story building collapses entirely. [Washington Post, 4/20/1995; Washington Post, 4/22/1995] Mary Heath, a psychologist who works about 20 blocks from the Murrah Building, says the blast “shook the daylights out of things—it scared us to death. We felt the windows shake before we heard the noise.” In a neighboring building, a Water Resources Board meeting is just commencing; the audiotape of the meeting captures the sound of the blast (see 9:02 a.m. and After, April 19, 1995). [Washington Post, 4/20/1995; The Oklahoman, 4/2009] Norfleet, trapped in the Marine Corps office, is thrown into a wall by the explosion. His skull is fractured, and a shard of glass punctures his right eye. Three separate arteries are pierced, and Norfleet begins bleeding heavily. Two supply sergeants in the office are far less injured; Norfleet asks one, “How bad am I hurt?” and one replies, “Sir, you look really bad.” One of the two begins giving Norfleet first aid; Norfleet later recalls: “He immediately went into combat mode and started taking care of me. He laid me on a table and he started looking for bandages to administer first aid. And while I was laying on that table, I just knew that I was losing strength and that if I stayed in the building, I would die.” Norfleet wraps a shirt around his head and face to slow the bleeding, and the two sergeants help him to the stairs, through the fallen rubble, and eventually out. Norfleet will later say that he follows “a blood trail of somebody that had gone down the steps before me” to get outside, where he is quickly put into an ambulance. He loses almost half his body’s blood supply and his right eye. He will never fly again, and will soon be discharged for medical incapacity. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 161-162] Eighteen-month-old Phillip Allen, called “P.J.” by his parents, miraculously survives the blast. The floor gives way beneath him and he plunges 18 feet to land on the stomach of an adult worker on the floor below, Calvin Johnson. Landing on Johnson’s stomach saves P.J.‘s life. Johnson is knocked unconscious by the blast and by the impact of the little boy falling on him, but when he awakes, he carries the toddler to safety. P.J.‘s grandfather calls the child “Oklahoma’s miracle kid,” and media reports use the label when retelling the story of the miraculous rescue. P.J. is one of six children in the day care center to survive the blast. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 275-277] Some people later report their belief that the Murrah Building was rocked by a second explosion just moments after the first one, the second coming from a secure area managed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) that illegally stored explosives. Law professor Douglas O. Linder will later write, “Both seismic evidence and witness testimony supports the ‘two blast theory.’” [Douglas O. Linder, 2006] That theory is later disputed (see After 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Explosion's Effects Felt Miles Away - Buildings near the Murrah are also damaged, seven severely, including the Journal Record newspaper building, the offices of Southwestern Bell, the Water Resources Board, an Athenian restaurant, the YMCA, a post office building, and the Regency Tower Hotel. Two Water Resources Board employees and a restaurant worker are killed in the blast. The Journal Record building loses its roof. Assistant Fire Chief Jon Hansen later recalls, “The entire block looked like something out of war-torn Bosnia.” Every building within four blocks of the Murrah suffers some effects. A United Parcel Service truck 10 miles away has its windows shattered by the blast. Cars in parking lots around the area catch fire and burn. Millions of sheets of paper, and an innumerable number of glass shards, shower down for hundreds of feet around the building. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 28-30]Truck Axle Crushes Nearby Car - Richard Nichols (no relation to bomber Timothy McVeigh’s co-conspirator Terry Nichols), a maintenance worker standing with his wife a block and a half away from the Murrah Building, is spun around by the force of the blast. They throw open the back door of their car and begin taking their young nephew Chad Nichols out of the back seat, when Richard sees a large shaft of metal hurtling towards them. The “humongous object… spinning like a boomerang,” as Richard later describes it, hits the front of their Ford Festiva, smashing the windshield, crushing the front end, driving the rear end high into the air, and sending the entire car spinning backwards about 10 feet. Chad is not seriously injured. The metal shaft is the rear axle of the Ryder truck. Later, investigators determine that it weighs 250 pounds and was blown 575 feet from where the truck was parked. Governor Frank Keating (R-OK) points out the axle to reporters when he walks the scene a day or so later, causing some media outlets to incorrectly report that Keating “discovered” the axle. The scene will take investigators days to process for evidence. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 32; New York Times, 6/3/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 187-189]First Responders Begin Arriving - Within minutes, survivors begin evacuating the building, and first responders appear on the scene (see 9:02 a.m. - 10:35 a.m. April 19, 1995). McVeigh's Getaway - McVeigh flees the bomb site in his Mercury getaway car (see 9:02 a.m. and After, April 19, 1995), but is captured less than 90 minutes later (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995).

According to later press reports, Chevie Kehoe (see June 1997), a former Elohim City (see November 1994 and April 5, 1995) resident staying at a motel in Spokane, Washington, wakes early and demands that the motel lobby turn the television to CNN, saying that “something is going to happen and it’s going to wake people up.” The motel owner will later tell reporters that Kehoe becomes elated when the news of the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) is reported, shouting, “It’s about time!” It is possible that Kehoe may have had advance warning of the blast through his Elohim City connections (see (April 1) - April 18, 1995). [Douglas O. Linder, 2006]

A bloodied survivor is helped from the Murrah bomb site. [Source: The Oklahoman]Survivors of the Murrah Federal Building bomb blast in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) begin evacuating. By 9:30, a triage center has been established at the corner of 6th and Robinson Streets. By 10 a.m., 59 survivors have either been rescued from the blasted building or have emerged on their own. The next day, the Washington Post will report: “Workers staggered out of stairwells, blood dripping into their eyes. A woman moaned on the ground, part of her leg apparently missing from the blast. Employees at buildings blocks away reported being thrown from their chairs, windows were shattered, and residents who live 30 miles from downtown reported feeling the powerful vibrations of the blast. Everywhere around the city, people stood in stunned silence, not believing what they had just seen and heard, not comprehending how anyone could have done such a thing.” Physician Carl Spengler, who arrives at the scene a few minutes after the blast to render assistance, tells a reporter: “It’s like Beirut. Everything burning and flattened.” Hours after the explosion, Assistant Fire Chief John Hansen says rescue workers see “many more fatalities in the building that we are working around” while searching for survivors. The task of searching for survivors goes on throughout the day and into the night, interrupted by erroneous reports of a second bomb being spotted and the subsequent evacuation of the scene (see 10:28 a.m. April 19, 1995). An agent of the medical examiner’s office, Richard Dugger, says: “Tomorrow will be the really awful day when everyone starts to get the official notification. That’s going to be a horrible thing to watch.” By 10:15, blood drives for the injured have begun at nearby Tinker Air Force Base and the Oklahoma Blood Institute. At 10:34, a new triage center is established at the corner of NW 3rd Street and Harvey Street. By 10:35, the Department of Defense delivers bomb-sniffing dogs, surgeons, equipment, medivac aircraft, and body bags to the site. [Washington Post, 4/20/1995; The Oklahoman, 4/2009] One mother, Helena Garrett, whose child Tevin is in the Murrah day care facility, runs from the nearby Journal Record building to the devastated Murrah Building to rescue her son, but is not allowed in by police officers. She finds another way in and begins climbing a pile of rubble to get to the day care on the second floor, but a man pulls her back down to the ground, telling her it is not safe for her to try to get to the facility. A few minutes later, people begin bringing dead, dying, and injured children out. Garrett, who knows the children in the facility, helps comfort one dying boy, two-year-old Colton Smith, until he loses consciousness for the last time. Garrett watches, numb and stricken, as the rescuers begin lining the children up on white sheets one by one on the ground. She screams: “Please don’t lay our babies on the glass! We don’t want our babies on the glass!” and a man with a broom sweeps away much of the broken glass on the ground where the rescuers are placing the bodies of the children, crying as he sweeps. Garrett never sees her son alive again; he is not found until April 22. The officials of the funeral home caring for Tevin’s body will convince Garrett not to look at her son’s head, as he is terribly disfigured by a crushing head injury. Instead, she recalls, they will open the lower lid of the casket. She later recalls, “I kissed his feet and his I kissed his legs, and I couldn’t go up higher.” [Serrano, 1998, pp. 166-168]

Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, having just set a massive fertilizer bomb to explode in the heart of downtown Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), executes his getaway plan, which centers around a Mercury Marquis (see April 13, 1995) parked near the Murrah Federal Building, the target of the bomb. McVeigh is almost into a parking lot when the bomb goes off. The wall of the building on his left comes down, and he is struck by falling debris in the left leg. He steps over a fallen power line and removes ear plugs he has been wearing. He crosses Broadway and is seen by a woman exiting a shop; he shakes his head at her as if to say he does not know what has happened. He turns right on Broadway and 7th, walks a quarter of a block, crosses NW 7th Street, and walks north along an alleyway before turning east on 8th Street. He crosses a set of railroad tracks, approaching the building where he parked the Ryder truck containing the bomb (see April 15, 1995). According to one source, a mail delivery man approaches McVeigh and says, “Man, for a second I thought that was us that blew up!” McVeigh reportedly replies, “Yeah, so did I” and keeps walking. (The source for the mailman’s statement is a document purportedly created by the McVeigh legal defense team—see February 28 - March 4, 1997; other reporters will try and fail to corroborate the statement.) McVeigh checks over the Mercury for damage, gets in, and starts the car; it takes about 30 seconds to start. He lets it warm up for another 30 seconds, by which time he can hear sirens approaching. After briefly working with the transmission, the car lurches into gear and he pulls out slowly, driving through the alleyway to Oklahoma Street, a one-way southbound street. He manages to get onto Highway 235 to Interstate 44, then finally to I-35 north. He is captured by a state trooper less than 90 minutes later (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995). [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 272]

Water Resources Board members and others flee into the streets after the bombing. [Source: The Oklahoman]A Water Resources Board meeting is commencing in the water board building just north of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, on the northwest corner of 5th and Harvey. As always, the meeting is audiotaped. Cynthia Lou Klaver, a Water Resources Board attorney, is there to help mediate a dispute from Ardmore, Oklahoma, involving a farmer who wants to drain scarce groundwater to open his own bottled-water business, a plan disputed by a small number of his neighbors. “We were getting ready to open it [the arbitration] up around nine that morning,” Klaver will later recall. She brings the group together in a third-floor boardroom, turns on a small cassette tape recorder, and begins the meeting. She has just begun to describe how the meeting will proceed when a huge, devastating roar thunders through the entire building. Pieces of ceiling and office furniture come crashing down. The roar, the sound of the explosion that devastates the Murrah Building (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), is captured on the tape, as is Klaver’s voice. “Everybody get out… out!” she screams. “Watch the electricity lines. Watch the lines!… Out the back door. All the way to the right.… Let’s get out of here!” Klaver later remembers wondering if the entire building is going to collapse, and will recall the tremendous amount of falling debris and live electrical lines. She and recording secretary Connie Siegel Goober try to help some of the elderly people out of the room, but find that the door is blocked. They force open a back door and lead their charges out of the room into a hallway. Klaver is one of the last people out of the building. Soon she and others are in the street, dazed and coughing on the thick smoke hanging in the air. She sees a coworker, Mike Mathis, who is attempting to drive himself to the hospital with a deep cut on his forehead. Klaver drives him, using his pickup truck. After officials let her back into the building, she will retrieve the audiotape. It will become one of the key pieces of evidence in the trial of the bomber, Timothy McVeigh (see April 25, 1997). She will also find a clock that had stopped after being shaken off the wall; it reads 9:02. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 158-160; The Oklahoman, 4/2009]

Oklahoma Highway Patrolman Charles Hanger. [Source: The Oklahoman]Timothy McVeigh, who has just detonated a massive fertilizer bomb that has devasted the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), gets into his Mercury Marquis getaway car (see April 13, 1995) and flees north out of the city (see 9:02 a.m. and After, April 19, 1995). At 10:17 a.m., while driving north on I-35 outside of Billings, Oklahoma, about 60 miles north of Oklahoma City, McVeigh is stopped for having no license plates on his vehicle by Oklahoma Highway Patrolman Charles Hanger, a trooper nicknamed “The Hangman” for his zeal in pursuing violators. According to later testimony, there is a radio blackout in force because of the bombing, allowing police to keep the airwaves clear. Hanger had been ordered to go to Oklahoma City, but then had those orders countermanded and was told to resume his duties. Roadside Stop - Hanger stops McVeigh’s car and calls his office on a cellphone to check the car, but forgets to activate his dashboard camera, so no video record of the arrest is made. Hanger later says he was apprehensive because another trooper had been shot on the same highway two weeks earlier. McVeigh, cooperating with Hanger’s directions, exits the vehicle and begins walking towards Hanger, hands empty. “I stopped you because you weren’t displaying a tag,” Hanger says. McVeigh looks at the rear of his car, clearly unaware that he lacks a license plate. He says he has not had the car long and that is why he lacks a plate. Hanger asks to see a bill of sale, and McVeigh tells him the paperwork is still being drawn up. Hanger does not believe this statement, and asks to see McVeigh’s driver’s license. McVeigh reaches into his back pocket and takes out a camouflage-colored billfold. As he does so, Hanger notices a bulge under McVeigh’s windbreaker. Hanger asks McVeigh to pull open his windbreaker. McVeigh says calmly, “I have a gun.” Hanger orders, “Get your hands up and turn around.” McVeigh complies. Hanger puts the muzzle of his gun to the back of McVeigh’s head. He orders McVeigh to walk to the back of his car. “My weapon is loaded,” McVeigh says. “So is mine,” Hanger replies. He then tells McVeigh to place his hands flat on the trunk of the Mercury and spread his legs. McVeigh complies. Hanger removes the pistol from McVeigh’s shoulder holster and tosses it onto the shoulder of the road, well out of McVeigh’s reach. McVeigh tells Hanger he has another ammunition clip on his belt, and Hanger removes this as well. “I also have a knife,” McVeigh says. Hanger removes the blade from a brown leather sheath and throws it to the roadway. “Why the loaded firearm?” Hanger asks. “I have a right to carry it for protection,” McVeigh replies. Hanger handcuffs McVeigh, walks him to his squad car, and puts him in the front passenger seat, belting him in. He then goes back to pick up the gun, the ammunition clip, and the knife. McVeigh, at Hanger’s request, recites the serial number of the Glock. Hanger comments, “Most wouldn’t know the serial number on their weapon,” and McVeigh replies, “I do.” Arrest and Booking - The dispatcher reports over the radio that Timothy James McVeigh has no outstanding warrants, and there is nothing in the system on the Mercury or on McVeigh’s pistol. Hanger arrests McVeigh for having no vehicle registration, no license plates, and carrying a concealed weapon—a loaded 9mm Glock semiautomatic pistol (see August 16, 1991). According to prosecutors and Hanger’s own recollections, McVeigh is very polite and cooperative with Hanger, answering questions, “yes sir,” and “no sir,” and saying he has served in the military and as a security guard. “No, sir, I did not intend to break your laws,” he tells Hanger. “I just carry the gun for protection.” Hanger later says he interviews McVeigh in the car, but will say: “I didn’t take any notes. It was just friendly chit-chat.” McVeigh tells Hanger that he just bought the car from a Firestone dealership in Junction City. Hanger has his dispatcher call for information on the car. Hanger searches the Mercury, finding nothing of immediate interest, but when he walks back to his car, he notices McVeigh fidgeting in his seat (see April 21, 1995). Hanger asks if McVeigh wants his car towed into town (at his own expense) or left on the road; McVeigh tells him to leave it where it is. Hanger locks the car and drives McVeigh to Perry, Oklahoma. During the trip, McVeigh asks Hanger again and again when he can get his gun back. Sometime around 11:00 a.m., McVeigh is booked and lodged in the county jail in the Noble County Courthouse in Perry. He is given prisoner number 95-057, photographed, and fingerprinted. Except for one brief demand to know when he will go to court, courthouse officials remember McVeigh as polite and soft-spoken. Hanger has no idea who he has caught; he takes his wife to lunch before turning in the gun and ammunition he confiscated from McVeigh. [Washington Post, 4/22/1995; New York Times, 4/22/1995; New York Times, 4/22/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; New York Times, 4/29/1997; New York Times, 6/3/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 176-180; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; Indianapolis Star, 2003; Fox News, 4/13/2005; University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 2006] McVeigh has a permit to carry the gun, but is in violation of the law because he is carrying it concealed, and because he has another weapon, the knife, also on his person. [New York Times, 4/23/1995] Later, Assistant District Attorney Mark Gibson says that Hanger, suspicious by nature anyway, had trouble with McVeigh’s story. “Particularly with his story that he was always on the road, he just didn’t believe,” Gibson will say. “And when he grabbed his gun and there was no reaction, no shock, that didn’t seem right, either. Neither did his story. Charlie said, ‘If you were in the military, when were you a security guard?’ and he said when he was on vacation. So things didn’t really jibe.” [New York Times, 4/23/1995] McVeigh’s gun is later found to be loaded with at least one Black Talon “cop-killer” bullet capable of penetrating body armor. [New York Times, 4/22/1995; New York Times, 4/22/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 177] Pat Livingston, a pawn shop owner in Ogden, Kansas, will recall selling McVeigh’s friend Terry Nichols two Glock semiautomatic pistols in February 1995. He also recalls selling McVeigh a similar Glock in 1991, and a Tec-9 assault pistol in 1993 (see February - July 1994). Livingston later says he remembers McVeigh well: “I knew that name as soon as I saw it on TV. That guy McVeigh, he wrote me a hot check for the Tec-9 in 1993.” [New York Times, 4/23/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996] Author Richard A. Serrano will later report that the pistol McVeigh is carrying is a .45-caliber Glock military assault pistol, Model 2.1. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 177] Left in McVeigh’s car are a blue baseball cap and a legal-sized envelope, sealed and stuffed with documents and clippings. Some of the documents include an excerpt from the racially inflammatory novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978), quotes from Revolutionary War figures, and newspaer clippings. [New York Times, 4/29/1997]False Driver's License Leads to Clues - Though he presents a false driver’s license, in the name of “Robert Kling” (see Mid-March, 1995 and April 15, 1995), McVeigh gives his home address as 3616 Van Dyke Street, Decker, Michigan. The address is the farm of James Nichols, the brother of Terry Nichols (see December 22 or 23, 1988). This information leads federal agents to both the Nichols brothers (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995) and later to McVeigh himself as a suspect in the bombing. [Washington Post, 4/22/1995; New York Times, 6/3/1997] McVeigh lists James Nichols as his “next of kin.” [New York Times, 4/23/1995] Some versions of events have McVeigh destroying the Kling driver’s license (see 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. April 17, 1995), giving Hanger his real license, and citing the Decker, Michigan, address as an emergency contact. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 178-180] McVeigh empties his pockets at the jail: the contents include $650, four rounds of ammunition, his billfold, keys, yellow coins, a roll of antacids, and a set of earplugs, which will later be tested for explosive residue. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 191; Serrano, 1998, pp. 181]Oddities - Later, the FBI speculates that the Arizona license plate, bearing the number LZC646, the Mercury once bore fell off sometime between the time McVeigh bought the car and the time Hanger pulled him over. It is also possible, the FBI will say, that McVeigh or his accomplice moved the license plate to another car after the bombing (see April 29, 1995). The license plate was originally registered on February 1, 1995 to a 1983 Pontiac station wagon owned by McVeigh (see January 1 - January 8, 1995), who then gave a mail drop in Kingman, Arizona (see February - July 1994), as his address. Press reports later claim that McVeigh traded the Pontiac and $250 in cash for the Mercury, and put the Pontiac’s license plate on the Mercury (a later press report states that McVeigh may have forgotten to transfer the Pontiac’s license plate to the Mercury—see May 16, 1995). A statement by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) says the Kingman mail drop address was used by a “T. Tuttle” (see October 12, 1993 - January 1994 and December 1993) in 1993 to advertise a “LAW launcher replica,” which the advertisement said fired “37 mm flares,” for sale in The Spotlight, a publication of the anti-Semitic Liberty Lobby. A LAW is a “light anti-tank weapon.” [New York Times, 4/27/1995]

Luke Franey, an explosives expert for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF, sometimes called the ATF), is on the ninth floor of the Murrah Federal Building when the bomb goes off (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Though he is an expert on explosives, he is unable to immediately identify the kind of explosion that rocks the building. He tries to extricate himself from the debris, and almost immediately comes across a small tape recorder in the rubble. He begins making dictated notes into the microphone, trying to preserve his impressions for history and for any possible prosecution that might be forthcoming. “It’s April 19,” he says, breathing hard. “I’m making this tape for evidence purposes.… I was sitting at a desk on the ATF office on the ninth floor talking about obtaining an arrest warrant.… During that conversation, a loud explosion occurred, blowing me from my desk across the hall into the opposite office. It took me a minute to figure out what happened. But once I regained my senses I heard people screaming for help. I looked. I got out of my office. The building is basically destroyed. The DEA office is gone. There’s a sheer dropoff outside of my office.… The building has been ripped apart and there’s a straight dropoff approximately nine floors straight down.” Franey continues his observations, which are punctuated by muffled screams and the noise of emergency sirens. He is unable to find any survivors. “I can’t get any verbal responses,” he says. “I’m just holding tight. I’m not hurt. A little bit disoriented, I guess.” He notes the phone lines are dead. “Hell, I don’t know what else to say. I’ve never seen anything quite like this before.” Franey turns off the machine at 9:05 a.m., three minutes after the blast, and turns it on again around 9:20 a.m. “I want to put this down before I forget. Right after it detonated, I got up and looked out the part of the building that wasn’t there. I could see where the Greek restaurant across was gone and there was a huge orange-colored flame with black smoke. I don’t know if it was a natural gas explosion that did this. I have no idea. I don’t know whether it was a bomb or a gas explosion or whatever. I’m not sure. But hell, who knows, it might be important.” Franey finds a large evidence poster board and writes on the back, “ATF Trapped, 9th Floor,” and props it in a window jamb. He later escapes across an outside ledge that slopes at a 45-degree angle, and will testify at the trials of bombing conspirators Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 160-161; Associated Press, 5/28/2001]

Charles Watts, an attorney sitting in a building near the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, feels and hears the explosion of the truck bomb that devastates the Murrah Building (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). A few seconds later, he hears what he believes might be a second explosion. In a later interview with the far-right Media Bypass magazine, Watts will say: “It was like two distinct happenings. We thought the [bankruptcy court] building we were in was the one being bombed, as I guess most people in downtown Oklahoma City did. The alarms immediately went off in the building. Never have I ever experienced anything like this. This was a huge, huge explosion.” Subsequent investigations show that Watts and fellow witnesses were incorrect in assuming they heard a second blast. Geological and explosives experts later determine that the “second explosion” was caused by the huge roar and shock wave of the upper floors of the Murrah Building smashing down upon themselves, “pancaking” one atop another. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 26-27] The US Geological Survey in Oklahoma recorded two major events 11.9 seconds apart at the time of the bombing. Oklahoma chief geophysicist James Lawson later explains that the second “tremor” was the building collapsing, not a second bomb. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 266] Reporter and author Brandon W. Stickney later writes: “When a car bomb is used on a building like the Murrah, the first wave of the explosion shatters windows and rips vertical supports away from the foundation as it creates an upward wave of motion. A shock wave penetrates to the interior, pressuring floor slabs, causing them to fall. The shock then creates pressure on the roof and sides of the building. A vacuum is created, causing a wind that can carry debris great distances. The explosion also forms a crater in the ground, creating an earthquake-like atmosphere, shaking the entire site.” [Stickney, 1996, pp. 33]

Merrick Garland, the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division in Washington, receives an “Urgent” report on his computer from Oklahoma City. The report concerns the bomb that has just ripped through the Murrah Federal Building (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Some of the report is speculation and some of it is incorrect. It was hastily compiled and sent out from the administrative office of the US Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma. The report reads in part: “An explosion was heard. Black smoke billowed from a few blocks north.… The explosion rocked the private leased space which houses the US Attorney’s office three blocks north from the federal courthouse.” The report gives details about the federal safety officials sent to investigate: “Along the three-block walk, they found massive glass in the streets from several of the high-rise buildings. Along the way, walking wounded were everywhere, along with emergency rescue vehicles. It appears, and has been speculated, that a massive bomb exploded in the area of ATF, DEA, or Secret Service offices in the Murrah Federal Building. Employees from HUD indicated there were a few suspected deaths, and a couple of critically injured.… Damage to the Murrah building included the front of the building being blown off, several floors seem to be missing, and you can see right through the building in the area of the 7th, 8th, and 9th floors.” Safety officials have inspected the nearby federal courthouse and found extensive damage there as well. “It appeared some small explosions were continuing, perhaps gas lines.” Garland enters the office of Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who calls Attorney General Janet Reno with the news. Reno asks for further information as it comes in. Garland looks for television news reports but sees nothing yet. Another “Urgent” report comes over his computer, again from the US Attorney’s office for the Western District in Oklahoma, and again mixing factual details with errors. “Information was received by the district that it was a bomb,” it reads. “Information was received by the district that there was a second bomb and it was NOT detonated. The northeast side of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was blown out. The 9th floor of the building is gone. All grand jurors have been evacuated. One WDOK (Western District of Oklahoma) employee has a child in the day care center in the Federal Building. Unconfirmed reports from the district were six children in the day care center killed, although CNN is reporting that all of the children are safe. The district reported that there was a bomb threat at a church located north of Oklahoma City. In reviewing cases, the US Attorney’s office initially reported that a defendant in a methamphetamine case had apparently made threats against the government.” Garland now sees pictures from the scene on television news reports, and realizes immediately that the devastation had to have been caused by a bomb and not a gas main break or any other accidental occurrance. By this time, Garland’s office is filling with prosecutors and staffers, stunned at the scenes they are witnessing on TV. Garland meets again with Gorelick, and both meet with Reno. Their first priority is to take control of the situation, and Reno alerts the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). A third “Urgent” report comes in; Garland reads: “A Channel 4 [local Oklahoma City television station] reporter reported the Nation of Islam has claimed responsibility for the bombing.… (see 10:00 a.m. April 19, 1995 and After) Dahlia Lehman, the victim witness coordinator in the Western District of Oklahoma, has a daughter employed at the DEA office in the Alfred Murrah Federal Building.” Garland leaves the Justice Department and runs across the street to the FBI building. Stepping into the Strategic Information Operations Center (SIOC), he is amazed at the number of tips already pouring in about the bombing. He stays in the SIOC office for much of the day, coordinating leads and details as information arrives. FBI Director Louis Freeh is in an adjacent room; like Garland, he is collating and processing information. Reports of bomb threats swamp the offices throughout the day (see 9:22 a.m. April 19, 1995 and 10:00 a.m. and After, April 19, 1995). [Serrano, 1998, pp. 182-187]

The rear axle of the Ryder truck from the bombing (foreground), used by the FBI to identify the truck and discover the identity of the bomber. The axle was blown 575 feet and crushed the Ford Festiva depicted in the photo. [Source: Associated Press]The White House announces that the FBI will be the lead investigative agency for the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Some in federal law enforcement feel that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) is the better choice to conduct the investigation, considering that agency’s expertise with explosives, but the White House wants to avoid the infighting and turf wars that ensued after the Branch Davidian raid (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993) and culminated in the tragedy that claimed 78 lives (see April 19, 1993). The FBI has also been training intensively since the Davidian tragedy on handling major events such as this one. The BATF will be involved, and some internal bickering will take place. FBI supervisor Weldon Kennedy, who runs the Phoenix FBI office, is named lead agent. Kennedy supplants Robert “Bob” Ricks, the FBI’s special agent in charge of Oklahoma City. Ricks had worked on the Branch Davidian siege. FBI Director Louis Freeh names Kennedy, not Ricks, to lead the investigation because of new FBI procedures, implemented after the Davidian tragedy, that call for increased group responses to major crisis situations. Kennedy has been training other agents in the new system and has experience working with a recent series of prison riots in Atlanta. Moreover, Kennedy has no connection to Oklahoma City and therefore does not know any of the victims or the law enforcement officials involved. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 184, 191-192] Some 350 agents and specialists, many of whom have friends and co-workers in the Murrah Building, are assigned to the investigative task force. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 33] In the following days, the FBI will perform intensive searches of the site of the bombing and of the surrounding area, marking off the areas in small grids and questioning everyone available. Gas stations and truck stops on highways leading in and out of Oklahoma City will be searched, and their employees questioned. A hundred and twenty-nine dump truck loads of debris will be carted to a sifting site at the county sheriff’s gun range 10 miles away, and the debris examined and sorted. In all, 1,035 tons of debris will be examined, much of it by hand. Telephone leads are followed up. The Justice Department’s Merrick Garland will spend the next three months leading the investigation until a group of US Attorneys named by Attorney General Janet Reno takes over. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 221]

The disaster response efforts for the Murrah Federal Building blast in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and 9:02 a.m. - 10:35 a.m. April 19, 1995) are interrupted when police are dispatched to a nearby building to investigate a suspicious briefcase that may contain a second bomb. A police bomb squad finds nothing. [The Oklahoman, 4/2009] Police Sergeant John Avera is one of the rescuers who has to leave the Murrah Building because of the bomb report. Avera ignores the bomb warning, trying to help free a woman trapped under huge shards of concrete and piles of bricks and rebar. She begs him not to leave her, but he has to. Before he leaves, he writes her name and her husband’s name on a piece of paper, intending to call her husband and tell him his wife was still alive. But somehow, in the confusion, he loses the piece of paper. He later racks his brain trying to recall her name. He believes her first name is Terry. He is later told that the woman was rescued, but he does not know this for certain. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 168-172]

In the hours after the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), some believe that the bombing was the work of Islamist terrorists. Televised news reports air theories of Islamist involvement, and say that eyewitnesses have reported seeing “Middle Eastern-looking men” fleeing the scene of the crime. [Los Angeles Times, 4/20/1995; Fox News, 4/13/2005] One eyewitness describes a man running from the scene clad in a black jogging outfit; many both in US intelligence and in the media assume that the man is likely Middle Eastern. One source tells reporters that the FBI has received claims of responsibility from at least eight groups, seven of which seem to be of Middle Eastern origin. Some officials privately fear that the bombing is the work of either Hamas or Islamic Jihad, two violently militant Islamist organizations. [Los Angeles Times, 4/20/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 185] Later in the day, Abdul Hakim Murad, an al-Qaeda operative in US custody, attempts to take credit for the bombing, but his associate Ramzi Yousef, also in US custody, does not (see April 19, 1995). In another instance, Jordanian-American Abraham Ahmad, attempting to fly to Jordan to visit relatives, is detained and questioned during a layover in Chicago. Ahmad, whom some sources describe as Palestinian-American, lives in Oklahoma City. A naturalized citizen who has lived in Oklahoma City since 1982, he has a background in computer science and is making a scheduled departure this morning to Jordan. His five suitcases contain, among other items, several car radios, large amounts of electrical wires, solder, a VCR, and a tool kit. He has packed a blue jogging suit and a pair of black sweatpants. Federal magistrates rush to serve him with a material warrant, moving so quickly that they misspell his name. He is stopped and questioned in Chicago before being allowed to continue his flight. He is stopped again in London, and this time is detained, strip-searched, and paraded in handcuffs through the crowded airport. He is photographed, fingerprinted, and returned to Washington before being transported to Oklahoma City. His name is leaked to the news media as a possible bombing suspect, creating a firestorm of interest; reporters crowd around his family’s home in Oklahoma City, and angry citizens vandalize his front yard. Authorities learn that Ahmad is going to Jordan for a family emergency. He will be released on April 21, will attend a memorial service for the bombing victims, and will file a $1.9 million lawsuit against the federal government. In later days, government officials such as counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will say that the possibility of Islamist involvement on some level is difficult to disprove (see Late 1992-Early 1993 and Late 1994 and November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995). [Serrano, 1998, pp. 185-186; Clarke, 2004, pp. 127; Fox News, 4/13/2005] Justice Department spokesman John Russell says of Ahmad: “He cooperated. There is no reason for him to be held.” (The Washington Post, in reporting this, does not name Ahmad, and identifies him as “Palestinian-American.”) [Washington Post, 4/22/1995] Shortly after the bombing, senior FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt, who had worked with the FBI at the Branch Davidian siege outside Waco, concludes that the bomber is probably a white male with militia ties and not an Islamist terrorist (see April 19, 1995).

The Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) spawns a wave of bomb threats throughout the country. Many callers say they know precisely when and where the “next bombing” will occur. No other bombs are found, but government offices in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Portland, Delaware, Michigan, Florida, Idaho, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Alabama, and Texas are evacuated. Some of the reports come from US Attorneys’ offices. Senator Don Nickles (R-OK) says: “You can go to any public building in Tulsa or Dallas, you can go to a public sporting event, and this kind of thing can happen. We’ve been very, very fortunate in this country. You think about it, America is wide open. We don’t have very tight security. My guess is, if somebody wanted to do an attack anywhere, they would have some success.” [Washington Post, 4/20/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 186-187; TruTV, 2008]

Federal, state, and local authorities begin hunting for clues in the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and 9:02 a.m. - 10:35 a.m. April 19, 1995). The FBI has been named the lead investigative agency (see After 9:02 a.m., April 19, 1995). It begins by tracking the Ryder truck that delivered the bomb. At the bomb scene, veteran FBI agents James L. Norman and James Elliott examine the truck axle that had crushed a nearby car; Norman finds a partial vehicle identification number, PVA26007. Elliott begins a database search for the truck through the National Insurance Crime Bureau, and by 2:15 p.m. the FBI learns that the vehicle is registered to a Ryder rental firm in Miami, and the rental agreement is traceable under its registration number, 137328. A quick check with the Miami office shows that the truck, a 1993 Ford with a 20-foot body, was rented from a Ryder rental firm in Junction City, Kansas, for a one-way trip to Omaha, Nebraska (see April 15, 1995). The identification is confirmed by the Florida license plate on the remains of the Ryder truck, NEE26R, which matches the Ford rental truck. The renter is listed as “Robert Kling” (see Mid-March, 1995). Confirmation of McVeigh as 'Kling' - FBI agents call the Junction City shop; owner Eldon Elliott (no relation to the FBI agent) answers, and the agents tell him to pull the Kling paperwork for them. At 4:30 p.m., Federal agent Scott Crabtree, the resident agent in nearby Salina, Kansas, arrives at the Junction City shop to gather information on the rental and on “Kling,” and to get the documents forwarded to FBI headquarters as soon as possible. Crabtree interviews Elliott, office manager Vicki Beemer, and mechanic Tom Kessinger. They tell him about “Kling,” and about a second man that might have been with “Kling.” From their descriptions, Crabtree gathers enough information to put an FBI sketch artist to work on drawings of two suspects who rented the truck (see April 20, 1995). The artist’s renditions are hampered by discrepancies and confusion among the three’s descriptions. They cannot agree on details about “Kling“‘s height, weight, the color of his eyes, or the look of his face. Their recollections of the second man are even more confusing and contradictory, but all three insist that there was a second man. The FBI quickly learns that the driver’s license used to rent the truck, issued to “Kling,” is false. The issue date of the Kling license is April 19, 1993, the date of the Branch Davidian tragedy (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After). The next day, interviews with Lea McGown, the proprietor of the Junction City Dreamland Motel (see April 13, 1995 and 3:30 a.m. April 18, 1995), reveal that “Kling” is a man McGown identifies as “Tom McVeigh.” She will also remember his Ryder truck parked in her lot. Shortly afterwards, the FBI learns via a national crime computer check that Timothy (not Tom) McVeigh is in custody in nearby Perry, Oklahoma, on unrelated weapons and vehicle charges (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995 and After 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995), and that McVeigh’s description closely matches that of “Kling.” [New Yorker, 5/15/1995; New York Times, 6/3/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 188-191, 195; Douglas O. Linder, 2001]Plethora of False Leads - After the sketches are released, the FBI office in Oklahoma City is bombarded with phone calls by people who claim to have seen the person, or both persons, in the sketch before the bombing. A motorist claims he saw a man running across the street near where the Ryder truck had been parked in front of the Murrah Building, and says he had to hit his brakes to keep from running into him. A woman says she saw a man strongly resembling “Kling” at the Murrah Building a week before the bombing, and “possibly again” a few days later. A meter maid tells an agent, and later a USA Today reporter, she nearly ran into the Ryder truck, and claims that the truck was going at an extremely slow speed and made her think the driver was going to stop and ask directions. A man claims to have seen “two individuals” in the Ryder truck 20 minutes before the bombing, and says one resembled the sketch of “Kling.” Another witness claims to have seen a car “speeding” away from the site of the blast, “obviously in an effort to avoid the bomb blast”; the witness is sure two people were in the car, and their testimony is later presented in evidentiary hearings by the FBI. The manager of a Texaco mini-mart in Junction City says the two men in the sketch had been hanging around his store for four months, visiting twice a week and stocking up on cigarettes and sodas. A bartender at the Silverado Bar and Grill in Herington, Kansas, where co-conspirator Terry Nichols lives (see (February 20, 1995)), says he remembers McVeigh and Nichols (both of whom he later identifies) coming into his bar every weekend for the last month, shooting pool and drinking beer. Many witnesses describe McVeigh as “polite,” and some say he comes across as a bit “funny.” At least one says the two smelled bad, as if they had just come from a pig farm—this detail comes after news reports inform citizens that the bomb had been composed of fertilizer. The FBI takes all the tips seriously, but most are quickly proven to be baseless. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 184, 224; Serrano, 1998, pp. 193-194]

Timothy McVeigh’s Mercury Marquis and two Oklahoma state trooper vehicles, in a photo taken shortly after McVeigh was pulled over for not having a license plate. [Source: University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law]Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), who has been stopped by a state trooper for having no license plates on his vehicle and arrested for that violation and for carrying a concealed weapon (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995), is incarcerated in the Noble County jail in Perry, Oklahoma. McVeigh tells another inmate, burglary suspect John Seward, that he had been stopped because he did not have a driver’s license or inspection sticker on his car. Seward will later tell investigators that during McVeigh’s stint in the jail, he makes two phone calls. Seward does not know who McVeigh may have called, though he believes one of the calls is to a local bondsman. McVeigh will remain in the Noble County jail, identified as Inmate 95-057, for two days before authorities connect him to the bombing (see After 10:00 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 20, 1995, 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995, and April 21, 1995). [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 1-10]

Steve Stockman. [Source: Steve Stockman]Representative Steve Stockman (R-TX), a freshman congressman who has won fans in the militia movement for his defense of “citizen’s militias” and his accusations that the Clinton administration deliberately caused the Branch Davidian tragedy (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After), receives a fax regarding the Oklahoma City bombings (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). The fax reads: “First update. Bldg 7 to 10 floors only military people on scene— BATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms]/FBI. Bomb threat received Last Week. Perpetrator unknown at this time. Oklahoma.” According to a statement released by Stockman five days later (see April 23-24, 1995), no one in his office pays any attention to the fax until they learn of the Oklahoma City bombing. Once they realize that the fax may pertain to the bombing, a staffer forwards it to the FBI. Later investigation will show that the fax was sent by Libby Molloy, a former Republican Party official in Texas who now works for Wolverine Productions in Michigan, a firm that produces shortwave broadcasts aimed at militia audiences. (The fax has the word “Wolverine” stamped across the top as part of the sender information.) Molloy also sends the fax to Texas State Senator Mike Galloway and to the offices of the National Rifle Association (NRA). [New York Times, 4/23/1995; 'Lectric Law Library, 4/24/1995; Dallas Morning News, 4/25/1995; Time, 5/8/1995; Houston Press, 6/22/1995]

Michael and Lori Fortier, close friends of suspected Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh who have some involvement in the bombing conspiracy (see May-September 1993, February - July 1994, August 1994, September 13, 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, and December 16, 1994 and After), see the news broadcasts of the bombing on television in their Kingman, Arizona, home (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). They have a house guest, Marion Day Laird. Laird will later recall that the Fortiers exhibit almost no reaction to the news of the bombing. “They acted the same,” she later says. “They didn’t act any differently that I would notice.” Fortier’s recollection of his reaction is quite different. “Right away, I thought Tim did it,” he will say. “I think I thought, ‘Oh my God, he did it.’” Fortier and his wife discuss calling the FBI the day of the bombing, or at least asking advice from Lori’s father, but after seeing President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno promise the death penalty for those responsible (see 4:00 p.m., April 19, 1995), they decide to tell no one. Later, when the FBI tracks them down and begins pressing them for information, Michael Fortier will lie about their involvement. “I felt Tim was like a buffer zone,” Fortier will say. “If people thought he was guilty, then that would bring suspicion down on myself. But if he was innocent, then surely I would have no knowledge.” In the days after the bombing, when FBI investigators first question the Fortiers, as Michael Fortier will recall, “I told them I didn’t think Tim was capable of it.” When asked about the possible involvement of suspected accomplice Terry Nichols, Fortier will say: “I just gave a negative answer that I didn’t know nothing about Terry. I just wanted to push him aside and not even have to think about him.” [Serrano, 1998, pp. 239-240] Investigators become more interested in the Fortiers after learning that a local reporter seeking to interview the couple is greeted with a shotgun and the words, “Stay away from here.” [Stickney, 1996, pp. 184]

Abdul Hakim Murad is in a US prison awaiting trial for his alleged role in the Bojinka plot (see January 6, 1995). Told about the Oklahoma City bombing that took place earlier in the day (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), he immediately takes credit for the bombing on behalf of his associate Ramzi Yousef. However, Yousef, also in US custody at the time, makes no such claim (see 10:00 a.m. April 19, 1995 and After). An FBI report detailing Murad’s claim will be submitted to FBI headquarters the next day. [Lance, 2006, pp. 163-164] A Philippine undercover operative will later claim that Terry Nichols, who will be convicted for a major role in the Oklahoma City bombing, met with Murad, Yousef, and others in the Philippines in 1994, and discussed blowing up a building in Oklahoma and several other locations (see Late 1992-Early 1993 and Late 1994). Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will later comment: “Could [Yousef] have been introduced to [Nichols]? We do not know, despite some FBI investigation. We do know that Nichols’s bombs did not work before his Philippine stay and were deadly when he returned.” [Clarke, 2004, pp. 127] Mike Johnston, a lawyer representing the Oklahoma City bombing victims’ families, will later comment: “Why should Murad be believed? For one thing, Murad made his ‘confession’ voluntarily and spontaneously. Most important, Murad tied Ramzi Yousef to the Oklahoma City bombing long before Terry Nichols was publicly identified as a suspect.” [Insight, 6/22/2002] Also on this day, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, an associate of Yousef and Murad who is being held in the US, is moved from a low security prison to a maximum security prison. [Lance, 2006, pp. 164] But despite these potential links to Muslim militants, only five days after the Oklahoma City bombing the New York Times will report, “Federal officials said today that there was no evidence linking people of the Muslim faith or of Arab descent to the bombing here.” [New York Times, 4/24/1995] Murad’s claim apparently will not be reported in any newspaper until two years later [Rocky Mountain News, 6/17/1995] , when lawyers for Nichols’s bombing partner, Timothy McVeigh, tell reporters that their defense strategy will be to claim that the bombing was the work of “foreign terrorists” led by “a Middle Eastern bombing engineer.” The lawyers will claim that the bombing was “contracted out” through an Iraqi intelligence base in the Philippines, and it is “possible that those who carried out the bombing were unaware of the true sponsor.” The lawyers also say it is possible, though less likely, that the bombing was carried out by right-wing white supremacists, perhaps from the Elohim City compound (see 1973 and After, 1983, 1992 - 1995, October 12, 1993 - January 1994, August 1994 - March 1995, September 12, 1994 and After, November 1994, February 1995, and April 5, 1995). [New York Times, 3/26/1997] The claims of foreign involvement will be discredited (see 10:00 a.m. April 19, 1995 and After).

President Clinton declares a state of emergency for Oklahoma City. Attorney Janet Reno is at the left. [Source: The Oklahoman]In a live television press conference, President Clinton addresses the nation regarding the morning’s bombing in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). He says: “The bombing in Oklahoma City was an attack on innocent children and defenseless citizens. It was an act of cowardice and it was evil. The United States will not tolerate it. And I will not allow the people of this country to be intimidated by evil cowards. I have met with our team which we assembled to deal with this bombing, and I have determined to take the following steps to assure the strongest response to this situation. First, I have deployed a crisis management under the leadership of the FBI (see After 9:02 a.m., April 19, 1995), working with the Department of Justice, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, military and local authorities. We are sending the world’s finest investigators to solve these murders. Second, I have declared an emergency in Oklahoma City. And at my direction, James Lee Witt, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is now on his way there to make sure we do everything we can to help the people of Oklahoma deal with the tragedy. Third, we are taking every precaution to reassure and to protect people who work in or live near other federal facilities. Let there be no room for doubt. We will find the people who did this. When we do, justice will be swift, certain, and severe. These people are killers and they must be treated like killers. Finally, let me say that I ask all Americans tonight to pray, to pray for the people who have lost their lives, to pray for the families and the friends of the dead and the wounded, to pray for the people of Oklahoma City. May God’s grace be with them. Meanwhile, we will be about our work. Thank you.” Clinton asks Americans to pray for the victims. Attorney General Janet Reno follows Clinton in the conference, and says, “The death penalty is available and we will seek it.” She refuses to speculate on whether the date of the bombing—the two-year anniversary of the Branch Davidian tragedy (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After)—is a coincidence or something more. “We are pursuing all leads,” she says. “This has been a tragic and heartbreaking day.… We cannot tell you how long it will be before we can say with certainty what occurred and who is responsible but we will find the perpetrators and we will bring them to justice.” At another time during the same day, Clinton tells a Des Moines reporter: “I was sick all day long. All of us have been looking at the scene where those children were taken out, and all of us were seeing our own children there. This is an awful, awful thing.” [PBS, 4/19/1995; Los Angeles Times, 4/20/1995; Associated Press, 4/20/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 187] Clinton press secretary Michael “Mack” McCurry later credits Clinton for putting an end to what he will call “the anti-Arab hysteria that almost swept this country. Because remember, in the first several hours, everyone was pointing fingers at Arab terrorists (see 10:00 a.m. April 19, 1995 and After and April 19, 1995), which turned out to be obviously wrong.” [PBS Frontline, 2000]

The FBI’s Clint Van Zandt, a “profiler” at the bureau’s behavioral science unit, discounts the idea that the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) is the work of foreign terrorists. Instead, Van Zandt notes that the date of the bombing is the two-year anniversary of the Branch Davidian debacle (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After). Van Zandt worked the Branch Davidian case. He concludes that the perpetrator is white, male, in his twenties, with military experience and possibly with ties to far-right militia groups. Van Zandt says the perpetrator is likely angry about the Davidian and Ruby Ridge (see August 31, 1992 and August 21-31, 1992) incidents. Coinciding with Van Zandt’s prelimilary profile, terrorism expert Louis R. Mizell notes that the date is “Patriot’s Day,” the date of the Revolutionary War battle of Lexington and Concord, and a date revered by the militia movement (see 9:00 p.m. April 19, 1995). Van Zandt’s profile is an accurate description of bomber Timothy McVeigh. [Douglas O. Linder, 2006; TruTV, 2008]

Richard Wayne Snell, a right-wing extremist who helped concoct plans to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1983 (see 1983), is executed in prison some 12 hours after Timothy McVeigh detonates a fertilizer bomb outside that same building (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Snell is affiliated with the far-right groups Aryan Nations (see Late 1987 - April 8, 1998) and the Covenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord, and has connections to the now-defunct violently extremist group The Order. Snell was convicted of two murders: the 1983 robbery and murder of Texarkana pawnbroker William Stumpp (whom Snell wrongly believed was Jewish), and the shooting death of a black state trooper, Louis Bryant, who in 1984 pulled Snell over for a traffic violation near De Queen, Arkansas; Snell shot Bryant as he approached his vehicle, then shot him to death as he lay on the ground. (In his trial, Snell argued that he killed Bryant in self-defense.) He fled the scene of Bryant’s murder and was chased to Broken Bow, Oklahoma, where he was wounded and subdued by officers. In his car, those officers found the gun Snell used to murder Stumpp. Snell now terms himself a “prisoner of war.” Right-wing paramilitary groups have protested his execution, calling him a “patriot,” and term the federal government “the Beast.” Snell, who has published a periodic white supremacist newsletter, “The Seekers,” was the focus of a March 1995 issue of another organization’s newsletter, the Montana Militia, which reminded its readers that Snell’s execution was set for April 19, stating: “If this date does not ring a bell for you then maybe this will jog your memory. 1. April 19, 1775: Lexington burned; 2. April 19, 1943: Warsaw burned; 3. April 19, 1992: The fed’s attempted to raid Randy Weaver, but had their plans thwarted when concerned citizens arrived on the scene with supplies for the Weaver family totally unaware of what was to take place (see August 31, 1992 and August 21-31, 1992); 4. April 19, 1993: The Branch Davidians burned (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After); 5. April 19, 1995: Richard Snell will be executed—unless we act now!!!” The Montana Militia’s plan of action was to flood the Arkansas governor’s office with letters protesting Snell’s execution. Snell’s jailers later say that for the last four days, Snell has predicted something “big” would happen on the day of his execution (see (April 1) - April 18, 1995). On his last day, Snell is allowed a visit by Elohim City founder Robert Millar (see 1973 and After), his “spiritual advisor,” where they watch the events of the Oklahoma City bombing unfold on television. Snell reportedly chuckles over the bombing, though Millar will say Snell is “appalled” by the reports. Snell’s last words are a threat directed to Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker (D-AR), as he is being strapped to a gurney for execution by lethal injection. “Governor Tucker, look over your shoulder,” Snell says. “Justice is coming. I wouldn’t trade places with you or any of your cronies. Hail the victory. I am at peace.” McVeigh will not mention Snell, and there is no evidence linking Snell or his colleagues to the Oklahoma City bombing. [New York Times, 5/20/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 161-162; Time, 2/24/1997; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; Anti-Defamation League, 8/9/2002] Snell’s widow will later say she has no reason to believe her husband had anything to do with the bombing. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 271] Millar brings Snell’s body back to Elohim City for internment. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 270]

The sketches of “John Doe No. 1” and “John Doe No. 2” as released by the FBI. [Source: The Oklahoman]The FBI releases sketches of the two men believed to be responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing the day before (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). The men are identified as “John Doe No. 1” and “John Doe No. 2.” [Indianapolis Star, 2003; The Oklahoman, 4/2009] The sketches are based on interviews with witnesses in Oklahoma City and in Kansas (see April 15, 1995). FBI agent Raymond Rozycki speaks to three employees at Elliott’s Body Shop in Junction City, Kansas, who give him most of the details used to compile the sketches (see April 13, 1995 and April 15, 1995). [Fox News, 4/13/2005] Additionally, Attorney General Janet Reno announces a $2 million reward for information leading to the capture and conviction of the bombers. [Mickolus and Simmons, 6/1997, pp. 809] The sketches are released on the authority of lead FBI agent in charge Weldon Kennedy (see After 9:02 a.m., April 19, 1995). In the following days, updated sketches are released, showing “John Doe No. 2” in profile and wearing a baseball cap with lightning streaks on the side. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 193, 261]One Identified within a Day; Second Never Identified, May Not Exist - Within a day, “John Doe No. 1” is identified as Timothy McVeigh (see April 21, 1995). Lea McGown, the owner of the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, Kansas, speaks to FBI agents and recognizes “Robert Kling” as “Tom McVeigh,” a man who stayed in the motel the week before (see April 13, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995). McVeigh had checked into Room 25 on Friday, April 14, she says, and stayed through the weekend. She also remembers McVeigh driving a large Ryder truck to the motel. “John Doe No. 2,” described as a stocky, swarthy man with a lantern jaw and a tattoo on his arm, will never be conclusively identified (see June 14, 1995). Agents seal off Room 25 and begin going over it for forensic evidence. [New York Times, 4/24/1995; New York Times, 6/3/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 194; Indianapolis Star, 2003] In 1998, author Richard A. Serrano will characterize “John Doe No. 2” as the man who “either got away with the biggest crime in US history or is a man who never lived.… Discounting the crank or ‘hysterical’ sightings (see February 17, 1995 and After, April 13, 1995, April 15, 1995, April 15, 1995, 3:00 p.m. April 17, 1995, 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. April 17, 1995, 9:00 p.m. April 17, 1995, 8:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, April 18, 1995, and (1:00 a.m.) April 19, 1995), only three people ever saw John Doe No. 2. Eldon Elliott, Vicki Beemer, and Tom Kessinger, the three Ryder employees (see April 13, 1995 and April 15, 1995), would recall only minor details about the man, and their recollections were as shadowy as his face.” Beemer will later say: “They were both in the office. I really don’t recall what the other guy—he was in there, but I don’t really recall where he was standing exactly.” [Serrano, 1998, pp. 259-260]False Sightings - Bogus sightings and detentions will abound after the sketches of “John Doe No. 2” are released. In Georgia, motorist Scott Sweely is stopped by a local sheriff and ordered to crawl out of his car window and lie facedown on the asphalt. Someone at a gas station told local police that Sweely looked like the sketch of Doe No. 2. Sweely is taken into custody and grilled by federal agents for four hours before being released. In Minnesota, a man resembling Doe No. 2 is arrested at gunpoint at the Mall of America. In California, a man AWOL from the US Army is rousted from his home and transferred to Los Angeles, where crowds scream and demand “justice” be carried out against him. A former Army friend of McVeigh’s, Roger L. Barnett (see January - March 1991 and After and January - March 1991 and After), is considered a possible Doe No. 2. Barnett resembles the descriptions of the supposed accomplice—he is stocky and has a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his arm. He also lives near the Arkansas state line, close to the gun dealer whom alleged co-conspirator Terry Nichols robbed to help finance the bombing (see November 5, 1994). However, time cards from his workplace show Barnett was at work the entire week of the bombing, and he passes a lie detector test. Another Army friend, Ray Jimboy, now working as a fry cook in Okemah, Oklahoma, is briefly considered a possibility, but a lie detector test clears him. For a time, Joshua Nichols, Terry Nichols’s son, is considered a possible Doe No. 2, though Joshua is 13 years old. The FBI is bombarded with calls; one husband even tells agents that the Doe No. 2 sketch is his wife. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 260-262]

Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) removes all the items left by fellow conspirator Timothy McVeigh (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995) in their Herington, Kansas, storage unit (see September 22, 1994). Nichols will put the items into his garage (see (February 20, 1995)). [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996] He also attempts to establish an alibi for himself by spreading an enormous amount of ammonium nitrate fertilizer (one of the components he and McVeigh used to construct the bomb) on his front yard; neighbors will later say the fertilizer is so thick on his yard that it looks like snow, and his yard will quickly become heavy with weeds from the over-fertilization. He dallies around on his front porch, presumably so neighbors will see him there. Neighbors will later say they were surprised to see so much of the usually reclusive Nichols. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 200]

Frank Keating. [Source: Fox News]The day after the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), Governor Frank Keating (R-OK) calls the perpetrator “an animal.” Keating says: “Obviously, no amateur did this. Whoever did this was an animal.” [Washington Post, 4/20/1995] “If terrorists can strike in the safe and place heart of America,” Keating adds, “then it is an awful statement about the evil that lurks in the world.” President Clinton says the bombing is nothing less than “an attack on the United States and our way of life.” Political scientist Douglas Simon says: “If any statement was made, it’s that any place can be targeted. After all, this wasn’t New York or Los Angeles. It was the heartland of America.” [New York Times, 4/24/1995]

The evening of April 20, Carl Lebron, a security guard in Buffalo, New York, is watching the late news on ABC when he sees the sketch of the two suspects in the Oklahoma City bombing (see April 20, 1995). Lebron instantly notes that “John Doe No. 1” looks like his former colleague, Timothy McVeigh (see November 1991 - Summer 1992 and Mid-November 1994). Lebron, who worried about McVeigh’s political extremism and emotional stability when the two worked together, visits the Buffalo FBI office on the morning of April 21 and says he believes the sketch is of McVeigh. Field agent Eric Kruss thanks Lebron and sends him home, but when Lebron walks in his door, his phone is ringing—Kruss is coming to bring him back to the field office. Lebron tells Kruss and other agents of McVeigh’s fanatical beliefs and his extreme agitation over the Branch Davidian tragedy (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After). He also tells the agents that McVeigh’s last known mailing address was a postal drop in Kingman, Arizona (see May-September 1993, February - July 1994, May 1994, and September 13, 1994 and After). Lebron asks what he should do if McVeigh suddenly reappears in his town; the agent replies: “Don’t worry. We’ve already got him” (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995 and After 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995). [Serrano, 1998, pp. 194-195]

Federal authorities investigating the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) find the address left on suspect Timothy McVeigh’s recent hotel registration (see April 13, 1995 and 3:30 a.m. April 18, 1995). The address is of the family farm owned by James Nichols, the brother of McVeigh’s co-conspirator Terry Nichols. Late in the evening of April 20, FBI investigators speak with two detectives from Sanilac County, Michigan, David Hall and Paul Cowley. Hall and Cowley had gathered information about bombing experiments that had taken place on a farm belonging to James Nichols (see December 22 or 23, 1988 and October 12, 1993 - January 1994). By 9 a.m. on April 21, Hall and Cowley facilitate an interview between the investigators and Kelly Langenburg, James Nichols’s ex-wife. By this time, Langenburg has spoken with her son Chase and gathered more information for the investigators. After speaking with the investigators, the agents tell local police officers that “[t]his is the best information we’ve received so far, and we’re going to run with [James Nichols].” Langenburg also tells the agents that Terry Nichols had been married to her sister, Lana Padilla (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990 and November 1988). Agents then contact Padilla in Las Vegas, and on April 21, teams of agents interview her and her son Joshua, Nichols’s son. She confirms that she has spoken to Nichols earlier this day, and gives the FBI his address in Herington, Kansas (see (February 20, 1995)). She says that Nichols is “an associate” of McVeigh’s. At this point, the FBI considers James Nichols a more likely suspect for a co-conspirator than Terry Nichols. [New York Times, 6/27/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 200]

El Reno Federal Corrections Center. [Source: Federal Bureau of Prisons]White supremacist Timothy McVeigh, held by federal officials on suspicion of being the Oklahoma City bomber (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995), is arraigned in a makeshift federal courtroom at Tinker Air Force Base near Midwest City, Oklahoma. He is arraigned before a federal magistrate on charges of maliciously damaging federal property. Merrick Garland, the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division in Washington, arrives in time to handle the hearing for the FBI. Garland is displeased by the lack of openness in the hearing, and arranges to have a dozen reporters in the “courtroom.” McVeigh, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and socks with no shoes, is led into the room and given a copy of the criminal complaint, or affidavit, against him. The affidavit is signed by an FBI agent, and in 14 paragraphs lays out the government’s case for holding McVeigh on suspicion of carrying out the bombing. The affidavit includes evidence given by Carl Lebron, McVeigh’s former fellow security guard (see April 20-21, 1995), though Lebron is not identified in the document. According to Lebron, McVeigh was “known to hold extreme right-wing views” and had been “particularly agitated” about the Branch Davidian debacle two years earlier (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After). The affidavit says McVeigh visited the site of the Davidian compound in Waco during the standoff (see March 1993), and later expressed “extreme anger at the federal government” and said the government “should never have done what it did.” Reporter Nolan Clay for the Daily Oklahoman later recalls: “He seemed like such a kid. I’ve covered courts for years, and I’ve seen hundreds of killers and usually they have an aura around them of being a killer. That look in their eyes. You can tell in their eyes they’re killers, and they are scary. But he looked like the kid next door. It’s true, that image about him. I was very surprised by that.” McVeigh enters no plea at the arraignment. Transferred to Federal Prison - After the arraignment, McVeigh is transferred to the El Reno Federal Corrections Center, just west of Oklahoma City. [New York Times, 4/22/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 196-198] He is represented by two local lawyers, public defender Susan Otto and private attorney John Coyle, who has specialized in death penalty cases. [New York Times, 4/22/1995] At El Reno, McVeigh is held in a cell with thick glass walls eight feet high; Coyle has to shout through the glass so that McVeigh can hear him. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 223] According to law professor Douglas O. Linder, McVeigh tells Otto and Coyle, “Yes, I did the bombing.” Any such admission would be privileged and not divulged to law enforcement officials. [Douglas O. Linder, 2006]Conditions of Incarceration - McVeigh refuses to provide any more information than his name, Army rank, and serial number, and allegedly tells investigators that he considers himself a prisoner of war. According to reporter Michelle Green, “The implication was clear: He saw himself as a revolutionary in the hands of the government he allegedly hoped to destroy.” [People, 5/8/1995] He will later deny reports that he considers himself a prisoner of war, and refused to give any information besides name, rank, and serial number (see June 26, 1995 and June 26, 1995). McVeigh is given the same privileges as most prisoners at El Reno, a medium-security federal facility: he is allowed to send and receive mail, read newspapers, receive visitors, and listen to the radio, though he has no television access. Reportedly during his time at El Reno he will receive at least four marriage proposals from women writing to him in prison. He will meet with his lawyers on a near-daily basis and will receive two visits from his father. He reads the Dallas Morning News and a number of right-wing publications, from the mainstream newspaper, the Washington Times, to the more extremist Spotlight, the John Birch Society’s New American, and a number of newsletters from militia leaders James “Bo” Gritz and Jack McLamb. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 194]

Federal authorities publicly identify Timothy McVeigh, the accused Oklahoma City bomber (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995), as a member of the Michigan Militia (see October 12, 1993 - January 1994, April 1994, and January 1995), and say the Nichols brothers, his suspected co-conspirators, are also affiliated with the organization (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995). After McVeigh’s arrest, authorities discover residues of ammonium nitrate and high explosives in his car. They also find political documents and a note from 18th-century philosopher John Locke citing his “right” to kill “political oppressors.” The package includes a copy of the Declaration of Independence, material on the 1993 Branch Davidian assault (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After), material on Revolutionary War battles, an anti-government leaflet, and quotations from political philosophers. Included in the documents are copied passages from the overtly racist novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978 and April 21, 1995). Later examination of the copied pages show that the pages describe the bombing of FBI headquarters that, in the novel, touches off a white “Aryan” revolution and the subsequent slaughter of blacks and Jews. The Turner Diaries passage contains the following quote: “The real value of our attacks today lies in the psychological impact, not in the immediate casualties. For one thing, our efforts against the System gained immeasurably in credibility. More important, though, is what we taught the politicians and the bureaucrats. They learned today that not one of them is beyond our reach. They can huddle behind barbed wire and tanks in the city, or they can hide behind the concrete walls and alarm systems of their country estates, but we can still find them and kill them.” Another document in the car contains a quote from Revolutionary War leader Samuel Adams that reads: “When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.” Underneath, in McVeigh’s handwriting, is an additional note: “Maybe now, there will be liberty.” [Washington Post, 4/22/1995; Mickolus and Simmons, 6/1997, pp. 809; New York Times, 6/3/1997; Anti-Defamation League, 2005]

Suspected Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh is transported from an Oklahoma jail cell to a helicopter, surrounded by police. [Source: The Oklahoman]White supremacist Timothy McVeigh, held in the Noble County Courthouse in Perry, Oklahoma, for misdemeanor weapons charges (see After 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995), is identified as the FBI’s prime suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995), as “John Doe No. 1” depicted in police drawings (see April 20, 1995). According to Assistant District Attorney Mark Gibson, if the local judge had not been busy with a divorce case, McVeigh would have been arraigned and released the day before. “In most cases this guy would have been bonded out yesterday,” Gibson tells a reporter. “God was watching us.” Gibson learns of McVeigh’s status as the bombing suspect from Noble County Sheriff Jerry Cook, who is informed over the telephone by a BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) agent in Washington, and is incredulous that the person being hunted throughout the nation (see After 10:00 a.m. April 19, 1995) is in his own rural courthouse. McVeigh is waiting outside a courtroom for his bail hearing and release; instead, Gibson escorts him back to his cell in an upper floor of the courthouse to await federal authorities. Cook shuts down the jail telephones and implements a security perimeter around the building. Judge Danny G. Allen, aware that McVeigh will soon be taken into federal custody, provides McVeigh a hearing on his traffic and weapons charges, and after listening to McVeigh denying ever doing anything illegal, sets McVeigh’s bail at $5,000 and sends him back to his cell. Shortly after noon, a group of FBI agents arrives in Perry via helicopter, with more on the way. By this time, many people in and around the courthouse are aware that McVeigh is the bombing suspect, and reporters are beginning to gather outside the courthouse. McVeigh attempts to telephone a local lawyer, but because Cook has shut the phones off, he is unable to get through. He angrily slams the phone down in its cradle, prompting jailer Farrell Stanley to later reflect that this moment is the only time anyone at the courthouse sees McVeigh display any emotion. (According to One of Ours, a 1998 book written about McVeigh and the bombing by Richard A. Serrano, McVeigh privately worries that he will be taken into FBI custody, tortured, and made to disappear without a trace.) [New York Times, 4/22/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 1-10]Final Wait - Two FBI agents, James L. Norman Jr. and Floyd M. Zimms, arrive to take McVeigh into custody. One of them asks McVeigh if he knows why they are here, and McVeigh responds: “Yes. That thing in Oklahoma City, I guess.” McVeigh asks for a lawyer, and says he will give no more information save for name, age, and other routine information. “I will just give you general physical information,” he says. He refuses to respond to any further queries, instead listening to the increasingly loud and angry sound of the swelling crowd outside. He asks the agents, “Take me out the roof,” and explains that he wants to be taken out of the building via the roof. “Jack Ruby,” he says. “You remember what happened with Jack Ruby.” McVeigh is referring to the man who shot President Kennedy’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. McVeigh believes the Dallas police allowed Ruby to get close to Oswald, and does not want the same thing to happen to him. The agents refuse, but promise he will be well guarded, for his safety and that of his escorts. Senior FBI agent James Adams decides to take McVeigh out by a courthouse entrance, with the sheriff’s van backed up near the door. McVeigh and the surrounding agents and other officials will only be exposed to the crowd for a few minutes. Adams later says that he never thought to put a bulletproof vest on McVeigh. After another agent takes McVeigh’s fingerprints, McVeigh is brought back to his cell for one last, brief stay. On the way back, he sees news coverage of the crowd gathered around the courthouse. He tells fellow inmate Tiffany Valenzuela that he did not bomb the Murrah Federal Building, and says the sketch being circulated of the bombing suspects (see April 20, 1995) does not look like him. He asks Valenzuela to look out of her window and see if she can spot federal agents “on the roof” or “outside.” She advises him to relax, saying, “I’m sure they got the wrong man anyway.” He admits to being “kind of paranoid” because “everybody’s out there.” FBI agents take possession of McVeigh’s mug shot, his fingerprint card, booking receipts, clothing, and the mattress he slept on in his cell; the fingerprint card and other belongings will be tested for explosive residue. Meeting with Local Lawyer - Local lawyer Royce Hobbs, who has been trying without success to meet with McVeigh, finally gets the meeting he has asked for after filing a petition with Judge Allen alleging that McVeigh is being held incommunicado. Allen allows the two to meet briefly, and Hobbs tells McVeigh to keep his mouth shut. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 191; Serrano, 1998, pp. 1-10]Perp Walk - Federal agents take McVeigh out of his cell, place him in handcuffs and leg irons, and escort him out of the building. “I’m not scared,” McVeigh mutters to himself. “I’m not scared now.” He is escorted into the parking lot to the sheriff’s van. The crowd spots him and begins screaming imprecations: “Baby killer!” “Burn him!” “Rip his head off!” “Killer!” “Murderer!” and “B_stard!” McVeigh does not react, and shows no emotion during the brief “perp walk” to the van. He is taken to a helicopter and flown to Tinker Air Force Base outside of Oklahoma City. News broadcasts later show photographs and video of McVeigh being “perp walked” in an orange jumpsuit, surrounded by FBI agents as the crowd jeers and screams; these images are replayed thousands of times over the following days and months. [Washington Post, 4/22/1995; New York Times, 4/22/1995; New York Times, 4/22/1995; New York Times, 4/22/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 179; Serrano, 1998, pp. 1-10; Douglas O. Linder, 2001] One onlooker, Darrin Rucker, tells a reporter, “They should give him a taste of his own medicine and put him inside a bomb and blow it up.” [Washington Post, 4/22/1995] McVeigh later says he was focused on looking for snipers in the crowd, moving his eyes in the Z-pattern he had learned in the Army. He later says he wasn’t afraid to die, but was intent on surviving to tell his side of the story. [CNN, 12/17/2007] He also later says he twice asked for a bulletproof vest, but was “ignored” by the jailers. His sister Jennifer McVeigh will express her anger at the media’s response to her brother’s appearance. “What would they have said about any look he had?” she will ask. “I mean, what do they want? You want him to walk out with a big smile on his face? What would they say about that? What kind of look do they expect from someone who has just been accused of a crime like that? I think the sun was shining in his eyes, first of all. He was squinting. I think that was part of it.… How would you like it if a bunch of people were staring at you, screaming ‘Baby killer!’ I don’t think you can assume a reason for everything. You can’t assume a reason for the way somebody looks at all times.” [Stickney, 1996, pp. 178-179] McVeigh will be arraigned in a federal court hearing at Tinker Air Force Base (see April 21, 1995).

The business card Timothy McVeigh hid under his car seat. [Source: TruTV]Trooper Charles Hanger, who arrested Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995), remembers McVeigh fidgeting under the seat of his squad car after being handcuffed and placed in the front passenger seat. Hanger searches the seat and finds a business card shoved underneath. The card belongs to Paulsen’s Military Supply in Antigo, Wisconsin. On the back are notes written by McVeigh: “TNT at $5 a stick. Need more. Call after May 1.” It also has the name “David” written on it. Hanger also finds a private security badge he had taken from McVeigh; he had slipped it into his shirt pocket and forgotten about it. He turns both over to the FBI. Federal investigators will use the card to conclude that McVeigh intended to execute more bombings. Two military supply dealers, Edward Paulsen of Antigo, Wisconsin, and his son David Paulsen, of Melrose Park, Illinois, will later testify as to their possible interactions with McVeigh. [New York Times, 4/29/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 181]

A former co-worker in New York identifies 27-year-old Timothy McVeigh, suspected of being the Oklahoma City bomber (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), as “John Doe No. 1” depicted in police drawings (see April 20, 1995). Authorities issue a warrant for McVeigh’s arrest, and quickly learn that he is under arrest in the Noble County Courthouse in Perry, Oklahoma, for misdemeanor weapons charges (see After 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995); a check of McVeigh’s Social Security number matches one flagged by the FBI as belonging to a suspect in the bombing, a check made because McVeigh is from out of state. McVeigh is arrested by federal agents less than an hour before making $5,000 bail on the charges. “He came desperately close to making bail,” Assistant District Attorney Mark Gibson will later say. [Washington Post, 4/22/1995; New York Times, 4/22/1995; New York Times, 4/22/1995; New York Times, 4/22/1995; New York Times, 6/3/1997; Douglas O. Linder, 2001] This afternoon, Joe Wolfinger, the head of the FBI’s Buffalo, New York, office, calls Niagara County Sheriff Tom Beilein and asks him to run a background check on McVeigh, who grew up in Pendleton, New York, just below the US-Canadian border (see 1987-1988). Beilein will later report he finds nothing. Deputies from Beilein’s force along with state police officers meet with federal agents at the home of McVeigh’s father, Bill McVeigh, who is stunned by the news that his son may be the one responsible for the bombing. Police soon find themselves working to keep members of the local and national media from overrunning the house. A state police officer lowers the McVeighs’ American flag to half-mast. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 24, 179-180] It is likely that the former co-worker is Carl Lebron, who once worked with McVeigh as a security guard (see April 20-21, 1995).

Suspected Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), currently being held without bond in the El Reno Federal Corrections Center (see April 21, 1995), has his 1977 Mercury Marquis trucked to the FBI warehouse from where he was forced to leave it on the highway (see April 13, 1995 and 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995) and thoroughly searched. A handwritten sign, apparently left under the windshield, is in the car; it reads: “Not abandoned. Please do not tow. Will move by April 23. Needs battery and cable.” The battery and cables are in working order; FBI investigators believe the sign was placed under a windshield wiper when McVeigh left the car in an alley near the Murrah Building to serve as his getaway vehicle (see April 16-17, 1995). They also find a thick manila envelope stuffed with anti-government documents on the front seat. Supervisory Special Agent Steven Burmeister and Agent William Eppright photograph the envelope, then, wearing protective gear, open it. Inside are two stacks of papers folded into thirds and a single note written in McVeigh’s handwriting that reads, “Obey the Constitution of the United States and we won’t shoot you.” Eppright and Burmeister put the envelope in a plastic container and continue processing the car. They then examine the documents in the envelope. They include excerpts from The Turner Diaries (see 1978), with some passages highlighted; a recounting of the Battle of Lexington and Concord from the Revolutionary War that was originally misdated April 29, 1775, and corrected by McVeigh to read April 19, 1775; documents railing against taxation and overzealous government agents; documents urging the weakening of the federal government in favor of states’ rights; and one article claiming the government has “initiate[d] open warfare against the American people.” Many of the articles are about the Branch Davidian siege and its tragic ending (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After), including an article from Soldier of Fortune magazine that claims the government committed “acts of treason, murder, and conspiracy” during the siege. The smallest clipping contains a quote from Revolutionary War leader Samuel Adams, printed in big letters: “When The Government Fears the People, THERE IS LIBERTY. When The People Fear the Government, THERE IS TYRANNY.” Under these words, McVeigh has written, “Maybe now there will be liberty!” Eppright dates and initials the clipping, and replaces the envelope and all its contents in its container. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 217-220]

Federal investigators probing the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) visit Jennifer McVeigh, the sister of just-arrested bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh (see April 21, 1995). She is visiting a high school friend, Dennis Sadler, in Pensacola, Florida (see April 7, 1995). As she later recalls, she was driving Sadler to pick up his paycheck when she heard the news of her brother being connected to the bombing come over the car radio; stunned, she pulled the car over and began chain-smoking. Sadler drove them home, where she called her father for news. Sadler will recall being in the car with her when the news of her brother’s arrest came over the radio. According to one of Sadler’s roommates, David Huckaby, she later said, “I can’t believe I was saying the other day, ‘Hang this person,’ and it’s my brother” (see Mid-December 1994). She Destroys Evidence - Jennifer McVeigh took a sheaf of clippings her brother had given her, including copied excerpts from the violently racist novel The Turner Diaries (see April 7, 1995 and April 15, 1995) into the laundry room behind the garage, and burned them. “I was scared,” she later tells investigators. “I just heard Tim’s name announced, so I figured you would come around sooner or later to talk to me.” She Is Questioned - The questioning is cordial, according to Huckaby, but, he will later recall, one of the agents tells Jennifer, “If you don’t help us we’ll charge you, too.” Two days later, agents return with a warrant to search the house and her pickup truck. The search turns up a cache of books, letters, and documents, many of them expressing anti-government and white supremacist ideologies, sent to her by her brother (see March 9, 1995 and April 15, 1995). Agents show the roommates some of the letters sent to Jennifer by her brother; one of them reads in part: “Be careful on the phones, because the G-Men are watching. Use the pay phone.” Another instructs her not to try to contact him after April 1, 1995, “even if it’s an emergency.… Watch what you say, because I may not get it in time, and the G-men might get it out of my box, incriminating you.” The agents begin questioning Jennifer again, and this time, Huckaby will recall, she tells them, “I’m not going to help you kill my brother.” Huckaby and the other rooommates later tell reporters about her burning her brother’s papers. “She did it out of panic,” Sadler will recall, adding, “It was nothing that would have been important anyway.” Another roommate, John Donne, will tell reporters that she watched news reports of the bombing on television with the rest of them. “You couldn’t peel her away” from the set, Donne will recall. At some point during the broadcasts, Donne will say, she said, “Whoever did that should fry.” Authorities also search the McVeigh family home in upstate New York. [New York Times, 8/4/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 236-237]"Fear Tactics" - Later, Jennifer McVeigh will accuse the investigators of using “fear tactics” to frighten her into talking. “They played a lot of games with me, a lot of things to get me talking,” she will tell a reporter from Time magazine. “They totally broke me down. I thought I could handle it on my own. I guess I couldn’t.… I didn’t have time to think things out. It was constant pressure altogether.” She will add that in a later session in her New York home: “They showed me pictures of burned, dead kids. They put me and my mother in this room with all these huge posters with my name and a picture all blown up with all these possible charges against me… like life imprisonment, death penalty, and this and that. My mother was in tears when we walked away; they just crushed her.” [New York Times, 8/14/1995] Investigators have, with consent, searched McVeigh’s father’s home in Pendleton, New York. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]Did She Know of the Bomb Plot? - In 1996, author Brandon M. Stickney will write that Jennifer McVeigh may have returned to Pendleton days earlier than reported, and hidden from police and press at her friend Mary Butler’s apartment in Lockport. A mutual friend later says that Butler was acting “very strange, almost scared out of her mind” in the days after the bombing. Butler told the friend, “You do not know the whole story” of the bombing, leading the friend to believe “she knew something was going on.” The friend will assert that Jennifer McVeigh was indeed staying with Butler. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 182]

James Nichols, the older brother of accused Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995), is taken into FBI custody as a material witness. The FBI lacks evidence to immediately arrest James Nichols, but considers him a strong possibility of being a conspirator in the bombing plot (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 20-21, 1995). Shortly after the bombing, as James Nichols will later recall, FBI agents descended on his home town of Decker, Michigan, drawn there by the address given by suspected bomber Timothy McVeigh (see April 21, 1995) to a Kansas motel just days before the bombing. The address is that of Nichols’s family farm, where McVeigh has stayed frequently in the past (see April 20-21, 1995). At first, Nichols hears rumors of an “FBI raid” on Decker, and finds them hilariously “far-fetched.” He will later tell a reporter: “Decker? The Oklahoma City bombing? I mean, everyone knows that’s the kind of thing a terrorist or an intelligence agent would do in a foreign country, not something a hick from Podunk, USA would do to his fellow citizens, his own countrymen. Not a chance!” Nichols runs some errands in town, including putting down a $2,000 deposit on a tractor engine he is having rebuilt, when he drives into a roadblock put up by local police officers. He can see federal agents on his farm from the road, and identifies himself to a police officer. [Jerusalem Post, 4/23/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 232]Taken into Custody - Nichols will later recall: “The government agents surrounding my farm possessed enough firepower to easily defeat a small planet. As I approached my driveway, an ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, also called BATF) agent who mistakenly thought he was in a ninja movie—I could tell by the way he was dressed and by the way he acted—jumped in my car and ordered me not to move, while pointing an assault rifle at my face in a nervy menacing manner. This guy seemed to be a recruit from the KGB or Gestapo or something, and was obviously a loose cannon who was also a few bricks short of a full load—a prerequisite for any adult who wants to dress and act like a Ninja turtle.” The federal agents who arrived at Nichols’s farm had come dressed in SWAT outfits. Nichols will go on to talk about the “cold eyes of a fanatic” over “the barrel of a fully automatic assault rifle” trained on him as the agent steers him onto his property. “Does this guy want to take it out on me because he wasn’t fortunate enough to be involved in the turkey shoots at Waco (see August 31, 1992 and August 21-31, 1992) and Ruby Ridge (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After)?” Nichols will later recall wondering. Nichols is taken into custody and held on unrelated charges of conspiring with his brother and McVeigh to make explosive devices (see April 25, 1995), keeping him in a local prison. Admits to Making Small Bombs on Farm - Nichols tells the agents that over the past few years, he has seen his brother and McVeigh make and detonate “bottle bombs” using brake fluid, gasoline, and diesel fuel. Sometimes he joined in with the bomb-making, he admits, but says the explosive devices were extremely small. He admits that McVeigh has stayed at the farm before, and says he believes “McVeigh had the knowledge to manufacture a bomb.” Witnesses Add Details - A neighbor, Dan Stromber, tells agents that he had seen the Nichols brothers make explosive devices by mixing fertilizer, peroxide, and bleach in plastic soda bottles. “We’re getting better at it,” he recalls James Nichols saying to him. Stromber also says the brothers were angry and resentful over the sieges at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas, the same incidents to which James Nichols will later refer. “The judges and President Clinton should be killed” because of the incidents, Stromber recalls James Nichols saying. “The FBI and the ATF are to blame for killing the Branch Davidians at Waco.” Stromber also recalls a young man named Tim staying on the farm in 1994 (see October 12, 1993 - January 1994), and recalls him always wearing “camouflage clothing” and carrying “a pistol” with him. A second neighbor, Paul Izydorek, recalls the man’s last name as “McVeigh,” and recalls him taking part in the bomb experiments. A confidential source informs the FBI of two men’s attempts to buy liquid nitro model airplane fuel and 200 ziplock bags from a hobby store in Marlette, Michigan, one using the name “Tim Tuttle,” an alias used by McVeigh (see December 1993). And Indiana seed dealer Dan Shafer tells investigators about the 1988 incident where James Nichols drew a picture of a building remarkably similar to the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and talked about bombing it (see December 22 or 23, 1988). Searching the Farm - Agents hold Nichols in custody for days, trying to determine what, if any, involvement he had in the bombing. They search his farm, and find large tanks of diesel fuel, 28 50-pound bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer similar to that used in the Oklahoma City bombing, and, in a field by an outbuilding, find jagged-edged shards of metal that appear to be bomb shrapnel. In the farmhouse they find copies of far-right white supremacist magazines such as The Spotlight, a paper envelope with a document quoting Adolf Hitler, 28 blasting caps, a safety fuse, and a manual telling how to clear fields and ditches with dynamite. Videotapes alleging sinister government conspiracies at Ruby Ridge and Waco lie atop Nichols’s television set; copies of pamphlets written by Davidian leader David Koresh and photographs from the Waco siege lie on the floor. Discarded envelopes addressed to James Nichols from “T. Tuttle” lie nearby. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 232-235]

White separatist Terry Nichols (see October 12, 1993 - January 1994, November 5, 1994, and November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995), learning that the federal authorities have connected him to the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), decides to turn himself in to local authorities in Herington, Kansas (see (February 20, 1995)). [Mickolus and Simmons, 6/1997, pp. 810; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; Nicole Nichols, 2003]Drives to Police Station - It is unclear if Nichols knows that his ex-sister in law has cooperated with authorities (see April 20-21, 1995). He suspects that he is being watched, but does not realize that a team of three FBI agents from the mobile command post at Fort Riley is surveilling him, a single-engine FBI airplane is circling overhead, and a larger surveillance team is en route. The first agent to arrive is Stephen E. Smith, who learns little about Nichols from Police Chief Dale Kuhn except that the address they have for him in Herington is accurate. Smith then meets two other agents from the command post and they drive to Nichols’s home on Second Street. Nichols, who is listening to radio reports about the investigation, picks up a broken fuel meter from his garage, tells his wife Marife (see July - December 1990) he is going to “do something about” the meter, gives her $200, and loads her and their young daughter Nicole into his truck. Unbeknownst to Nichols, he and the family are being followed by Smith and the two agents, who saw him pulling out of his driveway. (At this moment, the FBI is more interested in Nichols’s brother James—see April 20-21, 1995. Smith’s primary assignment is to compile background information on James Nichols.) When a second car joins Smith’s car in tailing Nichols, he realizes he is being followed. Nichols waves at the cars. He then turns into the driveway of the local Surplus City store, steps out, then thinks better of it and re-enters his truck. Instead, he goes to the Herington Public Safety Building, which houses the local police station. He tells Marife that if agents ask her about his whereabouts on Easter Sunday (see April 16-17, 1995), she should tell them that he went to Oklahoma City, not Omaha as he had told her that day. The two FBI cars pull into the building parking lot close behind. [New York Times, 7/2/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 200-202]'I Want to Talk to Somebody' - At 3:05 p.m., Nichols walks into the police station with his wife and their young daughter Nicole. Nichols is carrying his daughter in his arms; the FBI agents assume incorrectly that he intends to use her as a shield for possible gunfire. Marife Nichols will later describe her husband as “scared [and] anxious to know what’s going on.” According to Assistant Chief Barry W. Thacker: “He said: ‘My name is Terry L. Nichols. I just seen my name on television. I want to talk to somebody.’ I said: ‘Come on in. I think I can find somebody for you to talk to.’” Nichols, seemingly angry and agitated, says: “I’m supposed to be armed and dangerous. Search me.” Marife Nichols takes Nicole from her husband, and he removes his green jacket while Kuhn attempts to calm him. Outside, Smith and the other agents huddle together in the parking lot, worrying that Nichols may be attempting to take hostages in the police station. They call their supervisors in Kansas City; meanwhile, Kuhn reassures them that Nichols is not being belligerent. Shortly thereafter, Smith and the other agents enter the station. Nichols demands of them, “Why was my name on radio and television?” Smith explains they want to talk to him because he “is an associate of Timothy McVeigh.” The agents, along with some of the local constabulary, take Nichols to the basement and begin a lengthy interrogation session, led by Smith and fellow agent Scott Crabtree. Kuhn will testify that his officers tell Nichols three times that he is free to leave if he chooses. Instead, Nichols chooses to stay, telling one officer that “he was afraid to leave” and return to his home. From Washington, lead FBI counsel Howard Shapiro advises the agents to keep Nichols talking. [New York Times, 4/24/1995; New York Times, 7/2/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 202-203] FBI agents will interrogate Nichols and his wife Marife for nine hours (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995) and search Nichols’s property (see Evening, April 21, 1995 and After).

Email Updates

Receive weekly email updates summarizing what contributors have added to the History Commons database

Donate

Developing and maintaining this site is very labor intensive. If you find it useful, please give us a hand and donate what you can.Donate Now

Volunteer

If you would like to help us with this effort, please contact us. We need help with programming (Java, JDO, mysql, and xml), design, networking, and publicity. If you want to contribute information to this site, click the register link at the top of the page, and start contributing.Contact Us